Kind of like a history lesson but nothing’s really changed
Image by Kevin L O’Mara
A friend of mine gave me these old bottles.
Herbsaint in "4/5ths pint" bottle (375ml), a bottle size they no longer sell as far as I know. Price sticker says .25 – a full-size (750ml) bottle will set you back something like -20 nowadays.
Angostura bitters in 2 oz bottle with a K&B price sticker of .97. As far as I know they don’t regularly sell the 2 oz bottle anymore and a 4 oz will go for around . By the way, if you don’t know about K&B then watch this video. 1905-1997.
Peychaud bitters in the 5 oz bottle for .69; now sells for around .
The Angostura and Peychaud’s can’t be over, say, 30 years old since they have bar codes – the UPC didn’t appear on retail products until 1974.
Of course I tasted the bitters. The Peychaud bitters tasted just like my recently-purchased Peychaud bitters, maybe slightly less so. The old bottle of Angostura tasted even stronger than my current bottle – I’m going to chalk that up to evaporation, not formulation change since I’ve never heard mention of any such thing ever having happened.
I didn’t taste the last dregs left in the Herbsaint bottle but they smell like Herbsaint.
