At the time of Carlo Anselmo, most of the Italian liquorists produced their own Bitter. This liquor was called Bitter Italiano or Bitter Milano. It is different from the Dutch and the Swiss Bitter, not only for the recipe, but also because it had a lower alcohol content and a typical ruby red color, that characterizes it even today. In the famous manual Liquorista pratico by Luigi Sala (1897) you can find the three recipes compared: