Stoughton’s Elixir

medicinal extract of various botanicals

The original bitters, a “stomach settler”, manufactured and marketed by Richard Stoughton, c. 1690, London; a great success in authentic or imitation form well into the 19th Century; the bitters used in the original American Cock-Tail, but also a proto-cocktail when simply added to beer or wine (see purl), as was the original function. Although largely extinct by the 1860s, its influence is far-reaching, and recipes for imitation Stoughton’s were the foundation for the genre of red bitter aperitif liqueurs from Northern Italy (e.g., Campari).