The Guardian UK (Andrew Clark): Cocktail connoisseurs should be on alert. There could be an aromatic kick missing from your next manhattan or pink gin. The world is suffering an acute shortage of angostura bitters, the herbal concoction used to give an extra twist of flavour to classic alcoholic drinks. Bars are struggling to replenish supplies of angostura following a shutdown at the sole manufacturer, a recession-hit firm in Trinidad and Tobago.

Made from a secret recipe of herbs, barks, roots, spices and rum, bitters became popular in Britain as an additive for gin, partly to conceal quinine in tonic water.

In the UK the website of angostura's main importer, WB Distribution, says the product is completely sold out. Trinidad's House of Angostura has blamed a shortage in ingredients and a financial restructuring. The firm is owned by CL Financial, a Caribbean conglomerate hit by a liquidity crisis, prompting an emergency bailout earlier this year by the government of Trinidad & Tobago.

Patrick Sepe, chief executive of the US distributor, Angostura USA, said the production line ran dry in June and was only just getting back on track. "There has been a shortage," said Sepe. "You can't just turn on and off supply of bitters. It's not like producing bottled water – it's a very delicate, intricate process."

Invented in 1824, angostura was named after a town in Venezuela where a German doctor, Johann Siegert, came up with the recipe as a stomach tonic to ease tropical ailments among soldiers. Bereft of the classic bitter, certain bars have now turned to alternatives, including supplies from a German company, The Bitter Truth. "A lot of bars are not happy," said Mark Ludmon, editor of Bar magazine. "Any bar that's trying to do cocktails seriously will feel it's wrong not to use the right bitters."

Once owned by the rum firm Bacardi, the House of Angostura was sold in 1997 to CL Financial, which has failed to respond to requests for comment. According to Trinidad's Newsday newspaper, CL leveraged Angostura's profits against a series of acquisitions including a deal to buy control of a Jamaican industrial company, Lascelles deMercado. It was reportedly left with a TT$600m (£57m) hole in its balance sheet.

Tony Conigliaro, an award-winning cocktail inventor and owner of 69 Colebrooke Row, a bar in Islington, north London, said he had stockpiled angostura after learning of the shortage. He described bitters as a crucial finishing agent in well-mixed drinks: "What bitters will do is stretch the rest of the flavours across the palate."

Distributors say the US is the world's biggest consumer of angostura bitters, drinking the equivalent of about 750,000 four-ounce bottles or equivalents annually.

Sepe said he hoped supplies would improve in time for Christmas, as shipments are just beginning to resume from the Caribbean: "There have been a lot of rumours that we're going out of business and that people will never see Angostura bitters again. I want to be clear that is not the case."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/05/angostura-bitters-shortage