Two New Orleans Classics, Made With Our Bitters

I first visited New Orleans in 2009 for Tales of the Cocktail, the annual event drawing tens of thousands of the world’s finest bartenders, spirits brands, and cocktail enthusiasts to the French Quarter every July. It’s the largest event of its kind, and last week, Bark & Bitter had the distinct honour of attending the 2026 festival for the first time as official sponsors.

The entire Bark & Bitter lineup was well represented, with our alcohol-free bitters and our signature aperitivo, Novara, poured on-site all week at the Bookstore & Bitters Market. And of course we weren’t going to miss it. Any excuse to spend a week in one of my favourite cities, and we were there in person to take it all in. What we didn’t expect was to walk away with two of the biggest ‘pinch me’ moments we’ve had as a brand.

New Orleans Bywater Bitters: The Launch, Recipe, and Name

In late 2023, the Bark & Bitter lineup grew for the first time, with the launch of our alcohol-free bitters. Drawing from nearly two decades of experience behind the bar, our initial range focused exclusively on classic cocktail bitters staples: Aromatic, Orange, and finally, the one this story is really about: New Orleans Bywater Bitters, our alcohol-free answer to the classic Peychaud’s. Like everything in the range, they are 0% ABV, made from whole botanicals with no artificial flavours, extracts, or essences.

Bywater Bitters were among the hardest recipes we’ve ever developed, and easily the most herbaceous in the entire range. Dominant notes of star anise, fennel, and wormwood capture the flavours that run through so many classic New Orleans cocktails, with cherry and hibiscus providing a contrasting fruit note on the finish to soften the bitter edge and add the signature reddish tinge associated with Peychaud’s. The name comes from the Bywater itself, a vibrant, historic neighbourhood just downriver from the French Quarter. To this day, our Bywater Bitters remain one of our favourites.

Bywater Bitters, the Carousel Bar, and the Vieux Carré

For much of its early history, Tales of the Cocktail was hosted at the venerable Hotel Monteleone, a legend in its own right and revered by bartenders above all for the lobby’s iconic Carousel Bar. Originally known as the Swan Room, and under the stewardship of head bartender Walter Bergeron, this space birthed the Vieux Carré cocktail in 1938, a potent blend of Sazerac Rye, cognac, vermouth, Bénédictine and two bitters, Angostura and Peychaud’s.

The room became the Carousel Bar in 1949, after a renovation that took its cue from the amusement-park ride it’s named for, complete with a fully rotating bar anchored as the centrepiece of the small space. It’s been the place to drink a Vieux Carré ever since, and a fixture of my near-annual pilgrimage to the city.

So there was something particularly special about last week: sitting at that slowly rotating bar, handing over a bottle of our own Bywater and Honestly Aromatic Bitters, and asking the bartender to swap them in for the Peychaud’s and Angostura in my Vieux Carré. Nearly two decades of pilgrimages to this room and iconic bar, and now our bitters were in the glass. The first of two “pinch me” moments. And yes, the drink was delicious.

Chris Hannah and The Jewel of The South

Next, we headed a few blocks past Bourbon Street to visit one of the Crescent City’s most renowned cocktail bars, Jewel of the South. Housed on the first floor of an early-19th-century Creole cottage with distinctive blue louvred shutters, the bar opened in 2019 on the edge of the French Quarter and quickly rose to become one of the country’s finest cocktail bars.

My familiarity with Jewel comes via Chris Hannah, one of the New Orleans natives leading the bar and a staple of Tales of the Cocktail since my early days visiting the city. For years, Chris helmed the French 75 Bar at Arnaud’s in the French Quarter, where he served the bar’s namesake cocktail to the droves of wide-eyed Tales bartenders (myself included) who came to sip with admiration.

Ahead of this year’s trip, I learned about the Bywater Cocktail, created by Hannah in 2007 while at Arnaud’s. A New Orleans-inspired riff on the Manhattan, it swaps in a mix of aged rum, amaro, Chartreuse, falernum, and two types of bitters: orange and Peychaud’s.

Taking our seats at Jewel’s bar, we were met with a surprising welcome: the team recognized our Bark & Bitter t-shirts. As it turned out, Hannah and his team had recently visited Vancouver and spotted our lineup at retail on Granville Island. Their recognition made my day, and it got even better when they let me taste a Bywater cocktail for the first time, using our bitters in place of Peychaud’s by request.

Two classics, no Peychaud’s

I should be honest about the conditions here; this was more self-indulgent sampling rather than a comparative tasting. But you learn things about your own product when you drink it somewhere it has no business being.

Here’s what struck me. Both of these drinks prominently feature Peychaud’s, and its alcohol base does much of the heavy lifting in delivering its distinctive flavour and aroma. When we developed our New Orleans Bywater Bitters, we couldn’t lean on that (of course). Everything had to come from the botanicals themselves, which is why it ended up the most complex and herbaceous thing we make.

At the Carousel Bar, that meant holding a line against Sazerac Rye, cognac, and Bénédictine. At Jewel, the interplay of Chris’s rum, Chartreuse, amaro, and falernum made for a more complex, layered drink to blend into, but both times the anise-forward note punched through and felt seamless in its respective cocktail.

Overall, a pretty great couple of moments enjoyed over some equally delicious drinks. Thanks, New Orleans; we’ll be back soon.