Botanical Bitters · Denver, Colorado · Founded 2014
Strongwater
Old-world botanicals, modern mixology, and tiny bottles capable of changing an entire glass.
Strongwater began with herbs, roots, and spices steeping in a Colorado garage. Today those botanical ideas have grown into an award-winning collection of bitters, syrups, and modern potions brewed in Denver.
A Colorado garage. A cabinet of botanicals. The first Strongwater bitters.
Where It Began
Before the polished bottles and bar carts, there was experimentation in a Colorado garage.
A Modern Potion With Old Roots.
Strongwater began when founder Nick Andresen started experimenting with herbs, roots, spices, and botanicals in his garage.
His inspiration reached farther back than the modern cocktail bar. Family traditions included Scandinavian folk medicine and Asian herbal tonics—worlds where plants had long been infused, steeped, and combined with purpose.
That background found a natural home in bitters: potent botanical extracts used a few drops or dashes at a time to completely reshape the flavor of a drink.
Strongwater's earliest creations were bitters, and the company has continued building outward from that botanical foundation ever since.
Strongwater begins in a Colorado garage.
Whole herbs, botanicals, and roots become the foundation.
The company builds its own Denver production facility.
Bitters, syrups, sparkling mixers, and non-alcoholic drinks.
What's in the Name?
Before the Cocktail Bar, There Was the Strongwater Shop.
The name is an intentional nod to an older world of elixirs, herbal preparations, and botanical remedies.
Historic strongwater shops sold preparations that blurred the line between medicine, tonic, and beverage.
Bitters grew from that same tradition. Roots, bark, herbs, spices, and other plants were extracted into concentrated liquids originally valued as tonics.
Over time, bartenders discovered that those intensely flavored preparations could do something else remarkably well: make a drink taste better.
An old apothecary idea reimagined for the modern bar cart.
The meaning behind StrongwaterThe Old-World Part of the Process
Flavor Takes Time.
Strongwater's bitters are not simply flavorings mixed together in a bottle. The botanicals have to give up their flavor first.
Select the Botanicals
Herbs, roots, bark, fruit, spices, and other plant ingredients form the flavor architecture.
Macerate
The ingredients steep slowly so their aromatic and bitter compounds can be extracted.
Wait 4–6 Weeks
Strongwater allows its bitters weeks—not hours—to develop their concentrated character.
Bottle the Concentrate
The finished bitters go into glass dasher bottles where a few drops can transform a drink.
Inside the Apothecary Cabinet
Roots. Bark. Fruit. Herbs. Spice.
Bitters are less about one ingredient and more about what happens when many ingredients meet.
Aromatic spice can sit beside citrus peel. Cacao can meet bitter cherry bark. Black walnut can be layered with roasted cacao nibs.
The goal is complexity: something you notice immediately, but may not be able to identify with a single word.
The magic is not one botanical. It is the way roots, bark, fruit, herbs, and spice work together.
The Strongwater flavor cabinetSelected for a Reason
Why We Chose Strongwater.
Few products connect the apothecary, the cocktail bar, and the kitchen as naturally as bitters.
Strongwater gives us a modern maker using one of the oldest ideas behind the cocktail: concentrated botanicals capable of bringing balance, aroma, and complexity to a drink.
We also like that a bottle encourages the recipient to experiment. Add a dash to sparkling water, coffee, tea, an Old Fashioned, a Manhattan, or something entirely new.
It is a tiny product with an unusually large number of stories and uses hidden inside.
A few drops can completely change the drink— and give us an entire story to tell.
Why Strongwater belongs in the giftFrom the Bitters Cabinet
Choose Their Bitters.
Each bottle starts with botanicals, but each leads the glass in a very different direction.
The Strongwater Original
Aromatic
Chai Spice · Warm · Complex
Strongwater's flagship bitters, inspired by chai-style spice blends with warming cardamom, cinnamon, and aromatic depth.
The Bright Bottle
Orange
Citrus · Floral · Soft Spice
Fruit-forward orange bitters with hand-zested citrus and a calibrated background of herbs and spice.
The Fruit-Forward Bottle
Cherry
Cherry · Fruit · Earthy Spice
Tart and Rainier cherries meet earthy spices for a bottle that brings real fruit character to darker cocktails.
The Dark Bottle
Cacao
Cacao · Vanilla · Bitter Cherry
Bold cacao and warming vanilla meet bitter cherry bark for a deep, aromatic bitters blend.
The Rich Bottle
Black Walnut
Walnut · Cacao · Roasted · Deep
Black walnut and roasted cacao nibs create a rich, nutty bitters for fuller-bodied drinks.
Our Starting Point
Start With Aromatic
The Bitters That Launched Strongwater
If this is their first bottle, Aromatic connects most directly to Strongwater's original botanical story.
Choosing Their Bottle
What Do They Like to Drink?
Bitters sound complicated. Choosing them doesn't have to be.
The Classic Cocktail Person
For Old Fashioneds, Manhattans, and whiskey drinks.
AromaticThe Citrus Person
Bright enough for gin, soda, and lighter cocktails.
OrangeThe Coffee & Chocolate Person
A darker flavor direction for coffee and dessert drinks.
Cacao · Black WalnutThe Fruit Lover
For someone who wants more fruit character in the glass.
CherryBeyond the Bar Cart
One Tiny Bottle. Plenty of Places to Use It.
Cocktails
A few dashes add aroma, bitterness, spice, and complexity to classic mixed drinks.
Sparkling Water
Bitters and soda create a simple, intensely flavored low-effort drink.
Coffee & Tea
Cacao, walnut, orange, and aromatic spice can add a surprising layer to hot drinks.
Kitchen
Use bitters sparingly in glazes, baked goods, sauces, and other flavor experiments.
Behind the Bar Before Prohibition
BITTERSThe Little Bottle Behind the Big Cocktail.
Strongwater itself is a modern company, but bitters were already part of cocktail culture long before Prohibition.
Preparations that began as herbal tonics gradually migrated behind the bar, where bartenders discovered that just a few dashes could balance sweetness, spirits, and citrus.
When Prohibition arrived in 1920, the cocktail did not disappear. It moved underground—and the old tools of the bartender moved with it.
That gives Strongwater a legitimate place in our speakeasy-inspired gifts: not because the company existed then, but because the bitters tradition certainly did.
The Classic Demonstration
Why Bitters Matter: The Old Fashioned.
Spirit. Sugar. Bitters. A remarkably short ingredient list with nowhere for poor flavor to hide.
The Old Fashioned is one of the simplest ways to understand what bitters actually do.
Without them, the glass can feel like whiskey and sugar. With them, aroma, spice, and bitterness begin tying the drink together.
Strongwater became so interested in the classic that it spent years developing its own award-winning Old Fashioned syrup.
From Garage to Denver
A Modern Apothecary With Its Own Brewery.
The garage experiment didn't stay in the garage.
Strongwater built its own manufacturing operation in Denver so the team could control the brewing, extraction, and development of its recipes.
That in-house approach allows the company to keep experimenting— the same curiosity that produced its earliest bitters now extending into syrups, sparkling mixers, and non-alcoholic cocktails.
Bitters first. Then syrups, sparkling mixers, and a wider modern apothecary.
The Strongwater cabinet todayWhen Strongwater Goes Into a Gift
Every Gift Comes With More.
Botanical Bitters
A concentrated flavor tool chosen to make the recipient's drinks more interesting.
A Botanical Story
The herbs, roots, fruit, and spices behind the bottle.
Cocktail History & Recipes
How bitters moved from old tonic traditions behind the bar, plus ways to use them today.
Personalized Story
Add an occasion story chosen for the person receiving the gift.
From Our Shop
Gift Sets Featuring Strongwater
Give them the bottle, the botanical story, and something new to mix.
Give More Than a Gift
Add a Dash. Change the Whole Drink.
From historic strongwater shops to botanical bitters brewed in Denver today, Strongwater gives a tiny bottle a surprisingly deep story.