Month: August 2024

Maker: McMann & Tate Cocktail Co., Union City, New Jersey, USA.

Style: Alcohol-based bitters.

Aromas: Wildly Aromatic, Bing Cherry, Moroccan Orange.

Price: $15 each on the website for 2 oz. These were complimentary samples for review purposes.

Back on June 30, I received a cold email from Gene Cooper asking if I would be interested in some samples of some McMann & Tate Cocktail bitters for review purposes. I was a surprised, since I don’t get a lot of cold emails reaching out for sample purposes these days. The last one I received was from Tommyrotter back in 2019, and Union Horse before that way back in 2016. I think this is the first one I think I’ve received for mixers, which I don’t normally review. That may change in the near future though, since I’ve picked up a few interesting ones from craft producers recently.

Anyway, McMann & Tate’s name was inspired by the name of Darren’s firm in the 1960s sitcom of the Household Secret genre*, Bewitched. The marketing materials lean into that 1960s feel. For more on that, take a look at the email “interview” with founder Gene Cooper after the reviews.

They make a wide variety of cocktail supplies, including an interesting line of dried garnishes and, of course, bitters. Besides the three I received as samples, they also sell Citrus Grove, Cocoa Mole, English Lavender, Morning Coffee, No Foam Root Beer, and South Sea bitters (a limited release). McMann & Tate’s online shop is here.

My strategy with these was the use them in my go-to cocktails, then with a spirit on the rocks, and then try a cocktail suggested on the M & T website. Anyway, let’s get into it.

Bing Cherry Bitters

Ingredients: Alcohol, cherries, cacao, gentian, cherry bark, cassia, cardamom.

32% ABV

Nose: Cherry, cherry wood, and baker’s chocolate are the strongest aromas here, with the other, more delicate herbs and spices adding interest and complexity, but very much in the background.

Mixed: I used Bing Cherry Bitters in bourbon on the rocks, bourbon and brandy old fashioneds, a Manhattan, and in a bourbon and coke. I also tried the Rose’s Revenge cocktail from the McMann & Tate website. It held up well in all applications, even with the cola! Tasted like a Cherry Coke, but better.

This was my least favorite sniffed on its own, but it really came alive in the cocktails. I was pleasantly surprised. Recommended.

Moroccan Orange Bitters

Ingredients: Alcohol, orange peel, cacao, burdock, allspice, cardamom, clove, anise.

35% ABV

Nose: Bitter orange and baker’s chocolate lead the way, but the spices play a stronger role than in the cherry, each identifiable but working together.

Mixed with rye on the rocks, in an Irish whiskey cocktail called a Hearn (Irish, green Chartreuse, Absinthe) and a a cocktail from the website called a Fancy Free (also includes Wildly Aromatic bitters). It got lost in all of them. This was disappointing because I loved smelling it on its own. Bitters are for mixing, though, and while it didn’t hurt any of the cocktails, it didn’t elevate them either.

I decided to try it in some gin cocktails after that, thinking it would show up a little bit better. As occasionally happens, I was correct! I tried them in a cocktail called a Bijou (gin [I used barrel aged], red vermouth, Chartreuse), and then in a modified version of a kinda weird one I found online called Eeyore’s Requiem (gin [barrel aged again], white vermouth, fernet, and a lot of orange bitters). Moroccan Orange shone in these two. I can imagine they were do just as well with tequila or rum based cocktails.

McMann & Tate pride themselves on making lower proof bitters, but these might benefit from a bit more oomph when it comes to whiskey cocktails. For everything else, Moroccan Orange Bitters is recommended.

Wildly Aromatic Bitters

Ingredients: Alcohol, cranberries, orange peel, vanilla, gentian, cherry bark, clove, cassia, cardamom, anise.

32% ABV

Nose: This one is the most complex. Uncooked cranberries are immediately identifiable, but the rest work together to give the impression of a spiced cranberry sauce.

I tried this in an Old Fashioned, a Manhattan, and in a cocktail called The Holdfast that I got from Dave Wondrich on Twitter years ago, and in the aforementioned Fancy Free. I loved it as a substitute for Angostura bitters. It’s more complex and more subtle on the nose, but in cocktails it elevates everything it finds its way into. I was very impressed. This is going to be a go-to for me. Sorry Angostura. Highly recommended!

Now for the “interview”. After I wrote up the reviews, I sent Gene a quick email with a few questions, to help fill in the blanks on the company and its history. He very generously gave full, thoughtful responses to all my questions. Instead of doing the hard work of trying to digest them, I thought I’d let him speak for himself (with a tiny bit of editing).

Josh: How did you get interested in cocktails? 

Gene: When I was in high school my friend and I were pool boys at the Thunder Bird Hotel in Mantoloking NJ for a few summers (this was in the early eighties).  My friend’s dad also owned the place so we were expected to work long hours but there were plenty of perks (the pay was pretty good and we stayed in his efficiency apartment to avoid the weekend commute back and forth to the beach).  It was a pretty big hotel for the Jersey Shore, about 200 rooms, a restaurant, banquet room and an outdoor tiki style bar.  The bar is where we spent most of our time, not drinking (of course) but hanging out with the bartenders, learning what they do and how they work with customers.

This eventually led to my friend and I becoming bar backs along with setting up and closing down the bar every day.  The entire process of getting ready to work, creating something that people enjoy and receiving immediate feedback was really appealing to me (and getting cash tips seemed pretty cool too).

But my true fascination with making cocktails occurred after our last summer working at the hotel.  It was the summer before my freshman year in college.  My friend’s dad sold the hotel that summer to a developer and he told us, “take whatever you want because everything’s got to go”.  So, we drove my mom’s station wagon to the hotel for that final weekend, woke up at dawn, entered the liquor room and filled case upon case with spirits, modifiers, barware, blenders, brand signs and even the tiki barstools.  Fast forward to September, my dorm room pretty much resembled the Thunder Bird tiki bar, it was a pretty professional set up and I was “the” bartender for our weekend parties, parties that continued for several semesters.  This is where my love for making cocktails got its start and thankfully I’ve continued the journey, trying to learn something new every day.

J: How did the company start?  

G: I’ve always been a fairly creative person, I paint, have done improv and infused more spirits and made more syrups than I can count.  So, here’s another Covid story.  Having some additional time on my hands in 2020 I decided to make some bitters and shared them with my friends. Everyone said “these are pretty good you should sell them”.  That got the entrepreneurial bug back in my ear.

  I previously ran my own ad agency for a dozen years;  it had its ups and downs but the downs outweighed the ups and I said I’ll never do that again.  And as the saying goes, “never say never”.  But this time I had twelve years of business insight in my pocket.  So, I laid out my business plan and slowly pulled the trigger.  I started by getting the recipes dialed in and then submitted them to the TTB (to be considered a non-beverage that contains alcohol you need to submit your formulas, starting weight, ending weight, ABV, density and samples) for approval (approval lets you sell the bitters in food stores and you don’t need to worry about the varying state liquor laws). Not being a chemist, it took me close to two years to get 9 formulas approved – this was the biggest challenge I’ve encountered to date.  Once I had the formulas approved, I went into production and began tackling all of the related logistics.  I’m simplifying it a bit but every day’s been a new challenge but fun ones to conquer.

J: Who runs it currently? 

G: We’re small, I’m running the operations, sales and marketing.  All of our creative, design and production work are handled by GoldSpark Design and our food production (since our bitters are a food extract) is overseen by the Food Corridor, a commercial kitchen.

J: Any plans for retail in the future? 

G: Yes, in fact we just signed our first retail account with the Shady Lady Mercantile, an online cocktail shop and we have a few other retailers in our pipeline.  Our original plan was to go directly to the consumer (our phase one), but we quickly realized it’s a challenge to quickly and organically grow an audience with limited funding so we pivoted pretty fast, set up a wholesale store on faire.com and began reaching out to retailers.  Paying close attention to our costs prior to launch allowed us to maintain a high enough margin to go the retail route while still remaining profitable.

J: Anything else you think my readers should know? 

G: People, those close to my age, often asked if the name of the brand came from the 1960s Bewitched TV series.   It did.  I grew up watching the show as a kid.  If you’re not familiar with the show it was about a married couple, Samantha Stevens and her husband Darren.  Samantha was a witch (the good kind) and her husband worked for an advertising agency named, you guessed it, McMann & Tate.  For some reason I was more interested in Darren’s line of work than spells and potions.  Hence, my 35-year career in advertising.  So, the brand is really a nod to what inspired me to get into advertising.  And it’s fun to leverage that 1960s vibe a bit – so many of the competitors are product focused.  We’re more about the experience of making and sharing cocktails with your friends and family.  And we think our products are pretty good too.

Thanks again to Gene for reaching out and for his thoughtful responses to my questions!

*My wife’s a witch, but no one must know! I’m cohabitating with a magical genie, but no one must know! My uncle is from Mars, but no one must know! My horse talks to me but no one must know!