Every bartender has a cure for hiccups. And while no two are alike, most have one thing in common: They include bitters. Ask a bartender for his hangover cure, and there’s a good chance it’ll include bitters, too.

But bitters – the aptly named aromatic spirits featuring extracts of barks, roots, fruits, and spices – are emerging from the folk-remedy ghetto these days, as more and more people are rediscovering the pleasures of old-school cocktails spiked with a few dashes from the bitters bottle. A Manhattan, an Old Fashioned, a Sazerac – all are made with bitters. And it might surprise you to learn that martinis used to routinely include a bit of orange bitters.

Thanks to a resurgence of interest in these and other classic cocktails, several new brands of bitters have emerged recently to coexist with Angostura, the longtime market leader. Some older brands have seen a market revival as well, all testifying to the subtle but enduring charms of this most esoteric product category.

“Bitters are so aromatic and volatile, they’re the first thing that hits your palate,” David Wondrich, author of “Killer Cocktails” (Collins) and “Esquire Drinks” (Hearst) said. “That gives the other ingredients time to blend. When you taste a properly mixed cocktail, you don’t say, ‘Hmmm, whiskey, vermouth, cherry juice.’ You say, ‘Oh, a Manhattan!’ And then you realize what’s in it. The bitters help tie all that together.”

Mr. Wondrich said bitters date back to alchemical experiments in the 12th and 13th centuries. “Alcohol was considered to be a medicine, and they thought, well, if one drug is good, two drugs are better, so they started putting medicinal herbs and such in the alcohol, and those were the first bitters,” he said. “Richard Stoughton created the first patent bitters in the early 1700s in London, and that was consumed as a medicine, but was also mixed into drinks, creating the first cocktails.”

Here in America, Mr. Wondrich said, bitters became popular as a morning pick-me-up. “In the late 1700s and early 1800s, it was fashionable to drink bitters in the morning, usually because you were hungover,” he explained. “It could be something as simple as two or three roots and barks soaked in whiskey, and it would be fairly palatable.” These bitters were often consumed from a special long-stemmed glass with a small, tulip-shaped receptacle, still favored today by aficionados who adhere to the long-held notion that a gulp of bitters helps to stimulate appetite and digestion.

Soon, though, bitters found their niche as a cocktail element. Until Prohibition, in fact, the term “cocktail” implied, by definition, the use of bitters. “There were other kinds of mixed drinks that didn’t have bitters – fizzes, juleps, sours – but a cocktail was produced by mixing bitters with liquor and sugar, along with water or ice,” Mr. Wondrich said.

Bitters fell out of favor after Prohibition, as Americans shifted toward simpler drinks. But even if you’re not particularly well versed in cocktail culture, you’ve probably seen a bottle of Angostura bitters lurking on a shelf at your local bar. “It’s an excellent brand,” Mr. Wondrich said. “They’ve got a secret formula dating back to 1824, and it’s split up between four different people. And they’ve got special importing agreements with the Trinidadian government.”

Less celebrated, but enjoying a renewed market presence, are the various bitters made by Fee Brothers, a fourth-generation Rochester company that’s been involved in the spirits business since 1864 and has been making bitters since shortly after Prohibition. Fee’s Old Fashion bitters are comparable to Angostura, and the firm also makes excellent peach and orange bitters, along with a less notable mint bitters.

“The orange bitters was a dog product for us for years,” the company’s sales manager, Joe Fee, said. “But it was easy enough to make, so we never stopped completely. And now there’s a real resurgence of it. It’s been going on for a few years now, so it’s not a surprise anymore, but it’s certainly a nice development. We’ve got a new distributor in England, and we just made our first shipment to a new distributor in Australia.”

Asked about the flavor differences between his bitters and others on the market, Mr. Fee made no bones about his inability – or at least disinclination – to make fine distinctions. “Taste-testing bitters is, shall we say, difficult,” he said. “The taste is so pungent – when you take a sip of one brand, your mouth is saying, ‘What the hell have you done to me?’ By the time you get to the second one, your mouth is in positive revolt! You’re only using a couple of dashes in a drink, so we just try to put out a good product and hope to win people over.”

Because of bitters’ alchemical heritage, Old World history, and robust flavor profile, there’s a certain mystique to the production process – a mystique Mr. Fee is happy to cultivate. “I’d just as soon have people think I go out into the woods and collect roots and berries and twigs and let them ferment in a jar and do an embarrassing little dance during full moons,” he said. “Frankly, though, it’s not quite that exotic.”

According to Mr. Wondrich, the cocktail historian, homemade bitters are easy enough to make. “It has to be strongly alcoholic to extract the flavors, so it’s best to use Everclear [grain alcohol], or 151-proof rum,” he said. “Then you grind up your flavorings and aromatics, like coriander, anise, bitter orange peel, cinchona bark or cassia bark, cinnamon, maybe Columba root – you’ll probably have to go to an herbalist. So you put it all in and you let it steep for three weeks or a month. Then you strain it out, maybe add some burnt sugar for color, and you’re good to go.”

If that sounds like too much work, your best bet is to head down to LeNell’s (416 Van Brunt St., between Coffey and Van Dyke streets, Brooklyn, 718-360-0838), the Red Hook liquor shop that’s been leading the city’s bitters revival. Proprietress LeNell Smothers has more than 10 varieties of cocktail bitters in stock, and she’ll even sell you a long-stemmed bitters glass, perfect for that morning digestif.

Ms. Smothers has also declared March to be Bitters Month, with tastings available each day at her shop. As she sees it, the timing couldn’t be better, because interest is peaking. “One of my customers just brought me some bitters that he made,” she said. “He put Sichuan peppercorns in it, and it’s really good! I haven’t had a chance to try it in a cocktail yet. I just keep using a dropper to put little bits of it in my mouth.” Further proof that the bitter end – or the bitters end – can be a better end.