Stoughton’s Bitters , the first product of their kind, were the defining component of the original “Cock-Tail,” and the squat, square-shouldered little bottle they came in was a fixture in bars until the mid-nineteenth century. They were the creation of London apothecary Richard Stoughton (1665–1716), who completed his apprenticeship in 1687 and opened his own shop, just south of London Bridge, soon after. In 1690 or thereabouts, he began selling a new creation of his, an alcoholic extract of various bitter barks, roots, and herbs designed to produce instant purl (beer or wine infused with wormwood and other botanicals). See purl. All one had to do was add a teaspoon or so of his Elixir Magnum Stomachicum (“Great stomachic elixir”) to one’s glass of ale or Canary wine, and it was done. By the early 1700s, it was also being added to brandy, with gin to follow. See Cock-Tail.
Stoughton, a pioneer in marketing and one of the most dedicated and prolific advertisers of his age, touted the elixir as a stomach settler and general remedy for everything up to and including the common hangover. Yet it appears to have been the “pleasant, bitterish taste” (as Stoughton described it) of his “bitters,” as they were being called by the 1710s, that made them popular, not only in Britain and its colonies but throughout Europe and the Americas. In 1712, Stoughton obtained a royal patent, only the second granted to a medicine. That dissuaded his imitators for a while, but by the 1730s imitations were common, and recipes for recreating the bitters were beginning to see print, although they offered far fewer ingredients than the twenty-two Stoughton had claimed. Nonetheless, by the end of the century the bitters were a standard apothecary’s product, with at least three different formulae in circulation. See Campari.
It is probably impossible at this remove to determine what Stoughton’s original formula was, but the imitations all agree in using gentian and bitter orange peel in a brandy base, with cochineal to give it its often-described deep red-orange coloring. Other possible ingredients are Virginia snakeroot, germander, aloe, cascarilla, and rhubarb. The first half of the nineteenth century saw Stoughton’s gradually eased out of the bar, where they had become a fixture, by a new wave of proprietary bitters, and one rarely hears of them after the 1850s.
See also Angostura bitters, bitters, and Peychaud’s Bitters.
The Complete Family-Piece and Country Gentleman’s and Farmer’s Best Guide. London: 1737.
Davies, Raymond E. M. “Dr. Richard Stoughton and His Great Cordial Elixir.” Pharmaceutical journal 240 (1988): 377–381.
“The Great Cordial Elixir” (advertisement). Athenian Mercury (London), July 7, 1693.
Rennie, James. A New Supplement to the Complete Pharmacopoeias, London: 1829.
By: David Wondrich