I’ve always been a bitter person. When I used to drink alcohol, I was invariably drawn toamari,herbal liqueurs, and other potables that can feel like a much-needed punch to the taste buds. I’ve been booze-free for the past couple years, but I still crave that bitter bite—especially in the sweltering embrace of summer, when the stomach-warming effect of a bitter cocktail paradoxically makes the heat feel more bearable.
Lemon, Lime, and Bitters—Australia’sunofficial but widely recognized national beverage—is closer to a soft drink than a cocktail, but thanks to a tiny dose of concentrated flavor suspended in a soupçon of alcohol, it soars well outside the realm of simple sodas. Traditionally, LLB is a mixture of fizzy lemonade, lime cordial, and Angostura bitters, served over ice. (In the UK and the Antipodes, “lemonade” typically refers to a clear, carbonated, citrus-flavored beverage such as Sprite or 7Up. Its cousin, lemon squash, is a cloudier but still fizzy soft drink.) Although it contains barely any alcohol, LLB nevertheless attains a complexity that a cloying Shirley Temple or a one-note bitters and soda couldnever.
Lemon, Lime, and Bitters falls between those two extremes: not too sweet or sour, and balanced by an intensely medicinal kick of bitters. And these particular bitters—key to LLB’s rosy hue and elegant spiciness—aren’t even Australian.
In 1820, at the age of 24, a German doctor named Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert emigrated to Venezuela, where the revolutionary general Simón Bolívar named him the surgeon-general of his armies. During that time, Siegert began treating patients with a tincture he’d developed using tropical herbs and spices. Once he finalized the formula in 1824, he dubbed it Amargo Aromatico (or “aromatic bitters”) for a time, before eventually deciding to rename the elixir Angostura after the town where he lived in Venezuela (now called Ciudad Bolívar).
Soon enough, Siegert stepped away from the military and began marketing his popular Angostura bitters to the United States, the Caribbean, and to the United Kingdom. And how did those bottles find their way to Australia? According toone versionof the company’s history, Carlos Siegert, son of Johann, visited Australia in 1879 as part of a promotional tour for the bitters. But according to culinary historian Jacqui Newling, PhD, affiliate in history at the University of Sydney, ads for Angostura bitters had appeared inThe Australasianin 1867 and 1868. Additionally, other types of bitters had already been known in Australia since at least the 1830s.
“[Angostura’s] success at theInternational Exhibition in 1862is regularly referenced in ads, described as ‘an invaluable tonic in all enervating and hot climates’ and ‘celebrated for their exquisite aromatic flavour,’” Newling tells me.
By the late 1800s, Angostura bitters had become a popular adjunct to gin (to create “pink gin”), lemonade, and evenChampagne. The bitters began to appear more regularly in cocktail recipes, both in Australia and beyond, as the golden age of the cocktail reached its apex at the late 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Indeed, an American booklet of Angostura cocktails published in 1912includesa recipe for Angostura Phosphate, which calls foracid phosphate, lemon syrup, Angostura bitters, and “carbonic water”—not too far off from LLB.
As for the genesis of LLB itself, that’s where the history gets a bit murky.Accordingto one article from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), by the beginning of the 20th century, “lemonade and bitters was so commonplace, it was even being used as a remedy for car sickness.” The same article suggests that the introduction of lime to the mix probably took the form of lime cordial, rather than fresh juice.
Newling notes that oranges and lemons were common in Australia in the late 19th century, “but the lime may be a nod to the exoticism of the West Indies and other equatorial/tropical destinations that were popular at the time.”
One popular version of events claims that LLB originated on Australia’s golf courses, where players often sipped them at the proverbial 19th hole. From there, the drink spread to every corner of the country—and now, according to the ABC, “more than 100 million lemon, lime and bitters are served in Australia every year.”
In fact, the drink is so popular that if you happen to live in Australia—or in Trinidad and Tobago, where Angostura has maintained its base of operations since the 1870s—you can easily find bottled and canned versions of LLB. Angosturaproduces one, as does Australian ginger beer brewerBundaberg.
Luckily, making your own LLB couldn’t be simpler.
Simply combine one part each of freshly squeezed lemon juice and lime juice with two parts 1:1simple syrupto form the sour base of the drink. To that, you’ll add chilled seltzer and a few dashes of bitters. Some recipes call for the glass to be coated with the bitters before adding the ice and other ingredients, which will produce a pleasantly rust-colored cooler. If you’re a geek for presentation, however, you can float the bitters over the top of the lemon-lime soda to create a sunset-like ombré effect.
If you or your guests are strict teetotalers, keep in mind that Angostura bitters are 44.7% ABV—although at the level of dilution in this recipe, that works out to roughly 0.6% per drink, which is only slightly higher than commercially produced kombucha.
So whether you habitually or just occasionally refrain from drinking alcohol, start working this Australian classic into your repertoire. Bitters and soda will always be a excellent dive bar fallback, but with LLB, you can take the bitters with the sweet.
