A / B test
Bellamy Bitters
Chocolate-orange & mulled — the dessert bitter
- Botanicals: cacao, dried fig, cinnamon, star anise
- Anchor: dried orange peel — holds the chocolate-orange profile together
- Menstruum: Everclear 151 → combine to 45% ABV
Variants A & B differ by recipe (exact grams in your CCMC_Test_Batch_Recipes.pdf). Citrus note: lemon fights the cacao — if you're out of orange, go light or skip it in one jar and treat it as a data point.
A / B test
Province Lands Amaro
Aromatic aperitivo — bright & bittersweet
- Botanicals: reishi, cinchona, cardamom
- Citrus: a lift, not an anchor — lemon works fine and pushes it brighter
- Menstruum: Everclear 151 → combine to 45% ABV
Variant B is the aromatic-forward one — the brighter citrus suits it. Full grams in your recipe PDF.
A / B test
Cedar Swamp Bitters
Forest-floor & smoke
- Botanicals: king oyster mushroom, lapsang souchong (smoke), birch bark
- Sweetener: maple 6 g — both variants
- Decoction: birch bark goes into the water decoction with the mushrooms (bark gives up flavor to hot water)
A/B split is toast & smoke, not sugar. A: toasted king oyster + 1.5 g lapsang (smoke-forward). B: no toast + 0.5 g lapsang (earth-forward).
Dry blend
Quaker's Hollow Powder
Bench blend — not an extraction
- Batch: 50 g, 60/40 blend
- Process: roast → dry → grind → sift → blend
Included for reference — it's a dry powder, so it skips the macerate/decoct lifecycle. Log it as a batch and mark it Done once blended.