All The Bitter awarded IWSC’s 2023 Low & No Spirits Producer Trophy

Alternative drinks

Thu 19 Oct 2023

By Kristen Dougall

We’re delighted to award All The Bitter the IWSC 2023 Low & No Spirits Producer Trophy, sponsored byBevZero.

All The Bitter was founded by Carly and Ian Blessing, formerly sommeliers at The French Laundry in Napa, who quit drinking after they had kids. Seeing the rapid growth of the non-alcoholic beverage market and the incredible depth of non-alcoholic spirits offerings, but very few options for alcohol-free bitters, they decided to create their own. Launched in January 2022, they began developing recipes in Mason jars in their own kitchen, using foraged botanicals and ingredients grown in their own garden.

Our judges praised All The Bitter for their innovative, brave and adventurous approach to the meticulous creation, by hand, all of their products, ensuring quality, consistency, and accountability. One judge commented that bitters are “the salt and pepper of cocktails”, therefore the attention to detail that is put into All The Bitter’s products, with “no corners cut”, was not lost on our judges. And the medals awards in the IWSC’s 2023 Awards was testament to the quality. The New Orleans Bitters received a gold medal and 96 points, with judges exclaiming “These are evidently gold-medal standard cocktail bitters. The nose displays complex aromas of cherry and baking spices. Dry with profound intensity of the classic bitter notes, superb balance and an endless finish.”

When choosing a winner, our judges not only looked at the quality of the spirits, but also the company as a whole. The judges commended All The Bitters for “going the extra mile, their dedication to sustainability is notable and worthy of recognition”, not only sourcing organic and wild foraged botanicals, and purchasing local ingredients, but the company also take their sustainability efforts one step further by shipping in-house to reduce their carbon footprint and offsetting the carbon emissions of each order with contributions to companies that are pulling carbon from the atmosphere and donating 1% of our annual sales to planting trees and revitalising small family farms in Africa. Our judges were impressed to see that “sustainability is considered in every step of our production process.” For instance, partnering with a juice shop next door to the company to eliminate waste. All The Bitter only need the peels of oranges for their bitters, so the juice shop juice the oranges for their drinks.

Bitters are often a largely neglected aspect of the industry, but our judges were pleased to see a brand that has really understood just how important they are to the drinks industry, and have subsequently created award-winning non-alcoholic bitters to fill the gap in the market, making All The Bitters the worthy winners of our Low & No Spirits Producer Trophy.

Congratulations to All The Bitters.