Author: Leigh Kunkel / Source: Atlas Obscura
Angostura, the bitters packaged in the ubiquitous, yellow-topped bottles, can be found on nearly every bar in the world. Typically, a dash or two of the potent liquid is enough to add an earthy, sharp tang to any drink.
But on Washington Island—a remote locale off the tip of a tiny peninsula, surrounded by Lake Michigan in the northernmost part of Wisconsin—people do things a bit differently.
To truly drink like a local, you must take a full one-ounce shot of Angostura at Nelsen’s Hall Bitters Pub (as one of only a handful of bars on the island, that means pretty much every resident is a regular). According to the card you receive as an initiated member of the “Bitters Club,” that shot means you are “now considered a full-fledged islander and are entitled to mingle, dance, etc. with all the other islanders.”
It’s curious why anyone would want to willingly do shots of Angostura in the first place. But somehow this minuscule island, with a population of around 718 people, not only instituted a strange tradition, but also became the world’s single-largest consumer of the bitters brand. Washington Island’s fascination with Angostura Bitters can be traced, like a handful of American drinking practices, back to Prohibition.
Tom Nelsen first arrived on Washington Island in the late 1800s as part of a wave of Danish immigration. He not only traversed the northernmost reaches of Wisconsin, but also then crossed the choppy, treacherous stretch of water known as the Death’s Door Strait, so named because of the many shipwrecks that occurred there. He survived the journey, and opened his dance hall on the island in 1899, adding a bar three years later.
At the time, it served up drinks just like anywhere else. But after the Eighteenth Amendment kicked off in 1920, effectively prohibiting the production and sale of alcohol, Tom was at a loss. Then, he found the perfect loophole that would allow him to keep doling out drinks. He would sell bitters, marketed as a “stomach tonic for medicinal purposes.”
“During Prohibition, Tom got a pharmaceutical license so he could legally sell bitters,” says Sarah Jaworski, whose parents have owned Nelsen’s since 1999. This loophole wasn’t quite the same as that used by doctors who prescribed alcohol during Prohibition. Rather, the bitters were classified as a “stomach tonic for medicinal purposes” instead of alcohol, meaning that a doctor’s prescription wasn’t required. “Medicinal tinctures are usually taken in smaller doses, but since Angostura bitters are 90 proof, he was able to legally sell it as a tincture,”…
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