With over 20 years behind the bar, Nick Nemeth brings a wealth of experience and a deep understanding of what goes into a great cocktail. In this Q&A, we chat with him about his journey to creating award-winning non-alcoholic products, the craft behind Bark & Bitter’s small-batch bitters, and the time and care that go into their entire collection of alcohol-free offerings.
We also get into what makes a cocktail truly memorable, the story behind their Poured with Purpose initiative, and why every drink deserves the same level of care, with or without alcohol.
Enjoy!
For those who are new to Bark & Bitter, can you tell us a little about the brand and what you’re all about?
Bark & Bitter makes alcohol-free spirits and bitters in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Everything we make starts with whole botanicals - the roots, barks, peels and spices you'd find in traditional bitters, and we proudly don't use artificial flavours, extracts or essences in anything we produce. Our flagship product is Novara, a bittersweet aperitivo built for a proper non-alcoholic Negroni or Spritz. Alongside it, we make a line of 0% ABV cocktail bitters, including the Overtly Orange you'll find in this box.
We make bartender-focused ingredients for classic cocktails, built to earn their place on the back bar of a world-class cocktail bar or on the home bar of an aspiring alcohol-free mixologist.
They’re proudly bitter-forward, so we’re not for everyone, and that’s OK.
You spent more than 20 years behind the bar before starting Bark & Bitter. What did that journey look like, and when did the idea for Bark & Bitter first start to take shape?
I came up working in all kinds of bars, from chain restaurants to fine dining to nightclubs, and later entered cocktail competitions that took me around the world. Eventually I found myself in a career overseeing drink development for the largest chain in Canada, just as the modern alcohol-free movement was getting started. By 2019, while working in this role, I was eager to make something of my own. Around then, I also took a break from drinking and went looking for a bitter-forward, alcohol-free stand-in for the aperitivo in a Negroni. When I couldn't find one, I created Novara. We officially launched in 2021 and expanded into bitters in 2023.
After so many years making drinks behind the bar, how does that experience influence the way you develop products today?
It shapes everything. A bartender judges an ingredient not just on its own merits, but, more importantly, by how it behaves in a mixed drink. Bitters have to hold up under dilution, ice and carbonation. Novara has to sit in a Negroni next to a non-alcoholic gin and vermouth with a bitter backbone that punches through and works in harmony with the other ingredients.
Bartending taught me to respect the classics; when I'm developing something new, I measure it against drinks people already love, like the Negroni, not against competing products. Bitter, botanical-led styles survive the jump to zero-proof better than almost anything else, and I've spent my career working with those flavours.
When you’re developing a new bitter or aperitif, where does the inspiration usually come from? Is it a flavor, a cocktail you’re inspired to build, a specific ingredient, a place you’ve traveled, a memory, or something else entirely?
It almost always starts with a drink. I think about the classics that lose something essential when you take the alcohol out, then work backwards to the flavour or ingredient that would make it whole. Old bar manuals are full of drinks and ingredients that deserve another life -- our cardamom bitters are our take on a 19th-century staple that had all but disappeared. We made our New Orleans Bywater Bitters out of love for New Orleans and a desire for the city's most famous cocktail, the Sazerac. Novara is named for the city in northern Italy where the most famous aperitivo was first made, back in 1860.
Take us into the process a little. From an idea or ingredient in your head to a finished bottle of Bark & Bitter, what does creating something by hand and in small batches actually look like?
Slower than you'd think. An idea starts as small bench trials built from single-botanical infusions. We blend and adjust them one ingredient at a time, tasting each version on its own and then in a finished cocktail; it typically takes several weeks and trials before one makes it out of the lab. Once we're closing in on a recipe, we scale up to trial batches of one or two litres, and we usually run a few versions at once.
From there, final production starts with whole, dried botanicals that we weigh by hand. They go into the tank with a base of vegetable glycerine and reverse osmosis water and steep for six to eight weeks, much longer than they'd need in a high-proof spirit. From there, we press the botanicals, filter the liquid, and fill and label every bottle by hand at our own little facility in Niagara Falls.
We’re featuring Overtly Orange Bitters in our New Vintage box. Can you tell us more about the ingredients behind it and how you created that bitters experience without alcohol?
Our Overtly Orange Bitters are built on a base of sweet and bitter orange peel, with coriander and cardamom for warmth, gentian and quassia for bitterness, plus cinnamon and about half a dozen additional supporting botanicals. They start slightly sweet and finish with a proper bitter orange snap.
Traditional orange bitters are made by steeping botanicals in high-proof alcohol, which does two jobs: it pulls the flavour out of the peel and spices, and it keeps the finished bitters shelf-stable. We use vegetable glycerine and reverse osmosis water to do both instead. Glycerine draws out much of the flavour in citrus and spice, and keeps the bitters stable without added preservatives. Glycerine also adds a touch of natural sweetness and body, helping a zero-proof drink feel less thin.
If you were behind the bar with a bottle of Overtly Orange Bitters right now, how would you use it? Is there a favorite way you’ve been enjoying it lately?
The Tinto de Verano in this month's box is a great place to start! Behind the bar, I'd reach for Overtly Orange most frequently in a spritz. I'd build it with Novara aperitivo, non-alcoholic sparkling wine and a splash of soda, then finish with a few dashes of orange to tie everything together. Beyond the spritz, orange and aromatic bitters are right at home in an Old Fashioned or a Manhattan, and orange is just as good in a simple glass of sparkling water.
What makes a cocktail truly special and memorable?
Delicious flavour and balance can get you most of the way to a good cocktail, but what makes one memorable is rarely just what's in the glass; it's also often a combination of the person who made it, the room you were in, and who you were with.
With zero-proof drinks, I'd add one more thing: intentionality. The person ordering it should never feel like they got the lesser version, so it deserves the same glass, the same garnish and the same care. When someone who isn't drinking gets a drink that's just as considered as the one beside it, they remember.
Beyond what’s in the bottle, what do you want Bark & Bitter to stand for?
Doing things properly, with bartenders and great cocktails in mind. That means making our products slowly and intentionally from real ingredients, and treating non-drinkers as a priority, not an afterthought. Many products get sweetened or softened until there’s nothing left to object to, instead of speaking to a specific audience or flavour profile. We’d rather give each of ours a specific job, whether that’s anchoring a Negroni or finishing an Old Fashioned, and build it to do that job well.
Poured with Purpose is a really meaningful part of Bark & Bitter. Can you share more about how it came to be and why supporting mental health and addictions initiatives within the hospitality industry was something you wanted to build into the brand?
It came right from my own experience. Hospitality is a grind, with long hours, late nights and a culture where unhealthy habits are easy to fall into and help has historically been hard to find. So when we launched in 2021, giving back was part of the plan from the start. To this day, a portion of every sale goes to organizations building mental health and addiction support for hospitality workers.
And finally, what are you raising a glass to lately?
After a busy summer and start to fall, I’m raising a glass to slowing down: time with my wife and kids, watching the leaves change, and a few quiet weekends away without a laptop in sight. And here’s to everyone opening this box. Thanks for making room for Bark & Bitter in your glass. I hope you find a few slow evenings of your own this season, and something good to pour when you do. For now, I’m off to mix myself a Tinto de Verano...
