Candy Cap Mushroom bitters. Wow, have I been on the lookout for some candy cap bitters for a while! Luckily, I finally found some from Alley 6 Distillery. I feel like the usage of candy cap has been trending at some craft cocktail bars, and for a while I had no idea what “candy cap” referred to – for some odd reason, I thought it referred to something like powdered sugar.

Anyway, candy cap is actually a type of mushroom which is distinctively aromatic (think truffle, shitake, morel, porcini, etc) and regarded as a culinary delight generally used to add savory-ness in desserts/sweets, or conversely to add sweetness in savory dishes. In addition to the umami, earthy richness of mushrooms, it has strong flavors of reminiscent of maple syrup. Crazy, right?

Candy cap bitters will be fun to add a savory, umami note in cocktails. If you can’t find bitters, another good option is to get some dehydrated candy cap mushrooms (Amazon or a specialty store) and rehydrate into a syrup, infuse into a spirit, or make a tincture. They’re quite pricy, but a tiny bit goes a looong way. I got a small bag recently and have some fun experiments on the backlog.