People who search for bear root bitters usually have a glass in mind. Maybe they tasted osha in a small-batch bitters at a bar, or they already take Bear Root under the tongue and wondered how it would sit in a drink. A Bear Root tincture is made the same way bitters are made (a plant steeped in alcohol until the liquid carries its flavour), so you can dash it into soda water, tonic, ginger beer or a whiskey old fashioned tonight. A few drops is enough to taste it.
What bitters are
Bitters are roots, barks, peels and seeds steeped in high-proof alcohol, strained and bottled. Bartenders measure them in dashes, one or two per drink, which Tasting Table puts at roughly an eighth to a quarter of a teaspoon. The flavour is concentrated enough that a dash changes a whole glass.
They are older than most cocktails. When the Hudson, New York newspaper The Balance and Columbian Repository printed one of the first definitions of a cocktail on 13 May 1806, editor Harry Croswell listed four parts: spirits, sugar, water and bitters. The best-known brand came 18 years later. In 1824 Dr Johann Siegert, a German doctor serving as Surgeon General in Simón Bolívar's army, finished his formula for an aromatic bitters in the town of Angostura, Venezuela. He gave it to soldiers as an elixir. By 1875 the family business had moved to Trinidad, and Angostura bitters is still made there.
Is there such a thing as osha root bitters?
Yes. Small craft makers have bottled osha root bitters, and at least one New York company named its osha blend after the black bear (NYU's entrepreneurship blog profiled it in 2015). In a blended bitters, osha shares the bottle with other botanicals, so the root is one note among several.
If what you want is the osha itself, a single-plant tincture puts it front and centre. That is what Bear Root is.
Osha stopped more than half the growth of the TB bacterium at the lowest concentration tested.
Bear Root already works like bitters
Bear Root is an osha root tincture, Ligusticum porteri, a mountain plant of Northern Mexico. Osha belongs to Apiaceae, the carrot and parsley family, the same family as celery and lovage, and you can taste the relation. The flavour is earthy and warming, with a sharp, celery-like bite from the root. Bartenders reach for celery bitters in a Bloody Mary or a gin and tonic, and Bear Root sits in the same place with a rootier finish.
The bottle is ready to pour. It holds 50 ml in dark Miron glass with a dropper, which makes measuring a drink easier than shaking a dasher bottle. Dark amber glass is a step in the right direction for any extract, but dark Miron glass is the gold standard, and it keeps light off the liquid between drinks.
Making your own osha bitters means finding dried root, then days or weeks of steeping and straining. Almost all osha is wild-harvested, the plants are often more than 10 years old when they are dug, and United Plant Savers lists the plant as "At-Risk". It also looks like poison hemlock, so it isn't a root to go hunting for yourself. With Bear Root that work is done before the bottle reaches you. For the full story of the plant, read our guide to osha root.
Four drinks to make with Bear Root
Start with a few drops and work up to half a dropper. Taste as you go, the same way you would with any bitters. Each of these works any time of year.
Bear Root and soda after a hike
- A tall glass full of ice
- 200 ml soda water
- A squeeze of lime
- 4 to 6 drops of Bear Root, stirred in last
This is the easiest one. The soda carries the root flavour straight to you, and the lime sharpens the celery note. It also travels: mix it in a water bottle and it is waiting at the top of the trail.
An osha mocktail with ginger beer
- 150 ml ginger beer
- Juice of half a lime
- Half a dropper of Bear Root
- A few mint leaves, slapped and dropped in
Ginger and osha are both warming, and the two stack well. If you'd rather drink Bear Root hot, our post on making bear root tea has the method for a mug.
Tonic on the deck in the evening
Pour 150 ml of tonic over ice, add 5 or 6 drops of Bear Root and a strip of grapefruit peel. Tonic's quinine is already bitter, and the root gives it an earthy base, close to what celery bitters does to a gin and tonic. Anyone who wants the gin can add 45 ml. It works without it.
A weekend Bear Root old fashioned
- Put 5 ml of simple syrup (or one sugar cube with a splash of water) in a rocks glass.
- Add 60 ml of rye or bourbon.
- Add 4 to 6 drops of Bear Root, in place of aromatic bitters or alongside one dash of it.
- Add a large ice cube and stir for 20 to 30 seconds.
- Twist an orange peel over the top and drop it in.
That is Croswell's 1806 formula, spirit, sugar, water and bitters, with osha as the bitters. Rye leans into the celery bite; bourbon rounds it off.
Bear Root – Osha Root Tincture
50 ml dropper bottle. Ligusticum porteri from the mountains of Northern Mexico.
Add to bagHow much Bear Root goes in a drink
Use the dropper like a dasher. A rough guide by glass:
- Soda water or sparkling water: 4 to 6 drops
- Tonic or ginger beer: 5 drops to half a dropper
- Old fashioned or other stirred whiskey drink: 4 to 6 drops
- A jug of soda for the table: one full dropper, then taste
The product page suggests 1 to 2 droppers a day, held under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds or stirred into water, tea, juice or a smoothie. At that rate a bottle lasts 30 to 50 days. Used a few drops at a time in drinks, it goes further.
A drink with a long history behind it
Osha was a drink long before anyone put it in a cocktail. In New Mexico the root is called chuchupate, and families there brewed it as a tea for sore throats. The Rarámuri of Northern Mexico made a tea from it for stomach pain and fever. The Lakota name is mato tapejuta, bear medicine. The bear name comes from the story that bears dig up the root and chew it when they wake from hibernation, and observer Shawn Sigstedt watched Kodiak bears chew it and rub it into their fur.
A dropper of Bear Root in a glass of soda after a long walk carries the same root those families steeped, in a form you can pour in five seconds.
Questions people ask about bear root bitters
Is bear root the same as osha root?
Yes. Bear root is a common name for osha, Ligusticum porteri. Mara's Bear Root is an osha root tincture from a mountain plant of Northern Mexico.
Can I use Bear Root in a mocktail?
Yes. Add a few drops to soda water, tonic or ginger beer with citrus. Bear Root is a tincture (an alcohol extract), so like standard bitters it adds a small amount of alcohol to the glass.
What does osha taste like in a drink?
Earthy and warming, with a sharp, celery-like bite. In soda it reads like a savoury celery bitters; in whiskey it adds a rooty depth under the sugar.
Can Bear Root replace Angostura in an old fashioned?
Yes. Use 4 to 6 drops in place of two dashes of aromatic bitters, or one dash of each if you want some spice from the Angostura as well.