Topic hub — 2026-09-08
The bitterness of herbal bitters and amari
The bitterness of herbal bitters and amari traces first to bitter plants such as gentian root, cinchona bark, wormwood, and artichoke, whose content of glycosides and sesquiterpene lactones has been reported using the numeric yardstick of bitterness value. Pharmacopoeias and dictionaries do not write about this uniformly: even when covering the same bitter plants or related beverages, entries that state the properties and standards explicitly stand alongside entries that never touch the word "bitter" at all. The EU's spirits regulation and Argentina's food code define this bitterness as a legal category, setting alcohol content and permitted denominations. Aromatic bitters for cocktails can be traced historically as a drink that uses gentian and cinchona as core ingredients. How individual brands talk about their own bitterness is likewise not uniform: some clearly declare "bitter," while others never use the word at all.
On this page (11 sections)
- What this page establishes
- Bitter plants and their yardstick — gentian, cinchona, wormwood, artichoke
- Pharmacopoeias record bitterness; dictionaries and origin stories may not
- How standards define bitterness — the EU spirits regulation and the Argentine food code
- Where the name "bitters" came from, and its core ingredients
- Do brands talk about bitterness? — including negative findings
- Frequently asked
- What is not known
- Read in the encyclopedia
- Go deeper in the research notes
- Source ledger
What this page establishes
- The reported bitterness value of amarogentin, 58,000,000, can be confirmed in European pharmacognosy literature.
- That a German commission's monograph on gentian root sets a standard of a bitterness value of 10,000 or higher has been confirmed in the source.
- Within the same pharmacopoeia framework, both entries that specify bitterness numerically and entries that never mention the word "bitter" can be confirmed.
- Whether individual brands officially call themselves bitter is not uniform; as far as we could confirm, both brands that state it explicitly and brands that never use the word exist.
Bitter plants and their yardstick — gentian, cinchona, wormwood, artichoke
Gentian root contains 2-8% bitter constituents, most of which are secoiridoid glycosides. The main component is gentiopicroside, and amarogentin is present only in a small amount, at 0.025-0.4%.
Scope: Dried gentian root. Content varies with season, root age, and altitude (highest in spring).
Note: Based on the composition section of an EMA assessment report (a summary of textbook literature).
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ingredient-gentian-root —contains→ compound-gentiopicrosideThis amarogentin has a reported bitterness value of 58,000,000 and is described as "the most bitter substance known."
Scope: A value reported in European pharmacognosy textbook literature (bitterness value by the dilution method).
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compound-amarogentin —has_reported_bitter_value_of→ "Bitterness value 58,000,000. Described as "the most bitter substance known.""Wormwood is listed, as the source plant of absinthin — a dimeric bitter sesquiterpene lactone — in a correspondence table of a review covering the bitter compounds of herbs and spices.
Scope: A review summary (Table 1 of a 2026 review on the receptor pharmacology of bitter compounds in herbs and spices).
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ingredient-wormwood —contains→ compound-absinthinArtichoke's bitterness is attributed to cynaropicrin, a sesquiterpene lactone, and a review states that this compound accounts for approximately 80% of artichoke's characteristic bitterness.
Scope: A literature review on the bitterness of artichoke (genus Cynara) plants.
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ingredient-artichoke-leaf —has_major_bitter_compound→ compound-cynaropicrinQuinine is also frequently used as a bitterness yardstick. The OIV's document on the sensory analysis of wine gives quinine sulfate at 6 mg/L as a guideline reference solution for bitterness.
Scope: Part I, Table 1 of the same document. A table of guideline reference-solution concentrations used to train candidate sensory panelists in stimulus detection.
Note: In the alternative ISO 3972 table accompanying the same table, caffeine at 0.195 mg/L (the concentration detected and identified by 50% of novice subjects) is separately listed as the bitterness identification criterion.
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compound-quinine —is_used_as_sensory_reference_for→ sensation-bitterPharmacopoeias record bitterness; dictionaries and origin stories may not
Pharmacopoeia-type sources sometimes state bitterness itself explicitly as a standard. The German Kommission E's monograph on gentian root (revised 1985/1990) sets a standard of a bitterness value of 10,000 or higher.
Scope: A record of use as a traditional herbal medicinal product in Europe (the EU adopted a traditional-use monograph in 2018).
Note: A historical and regulatory-context claim, not a demonstration of effect. We make no recommendation to drink it for this purpose.
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ingredient-gentian-root —has_documented_traditional_use_as→ "Classified as a "bitter stomachic" (a pharmacopoeial term for this category of bittering agent) and appetite stimulant. The German Kommission E monograph (revised 1985/1990) specifies a bitterness value of 10,000 or higher and lists the indications as loss of appetite, bloating, and flatulence."Within that same pharmacopoeia framework, however, there are also entries that make no mention of bitterness. The first official Pharmacopoeia of the Kingdom of Italy (1892) records only the preparation method for "Vino Chinato," made by macerating cinchona bark in Marsala wine, and this entry contains no mention of bitterness.
Scope: The entry in the 1892 edition. This entry contains no explicit statement of taste (bitterness or otherwise).
Note: Connected to the existing ingredient-vino-chinato entity. The fact that this entry does not state bitterness explicitly is recorded in the evidence's finding_paraphrase.
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ingredient-vino-chinato —is_documented_in→ "Listed in the first official Pharmacopoeia of the Kingdom of Italy (1892) as "Vino Chinato (Vinum Chinatum)," prepared by macerating cinchona bark in Marsala wine."The same asymmetry appears in dictionary entries. The Treccani vocabulary dictionary's entry for "elisir" gives "elisir di china" (cinchona elixir) as an example usage, but this definition itself contains no mention of bitterness.
Scope: An example usage in the Treccani entry for "elisir." There is no mention of bitterness within this entry's definition itself.
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concept-elisir-medicinal-preparation —includes→ ""Elisir di china" (cinchona elixir) is given as an example usage."The same dictionary writes differently under its headword "amaro." The Treccani vocabulary dictionary defines amaro as a beverage obtained from various bitter botanical materials, touching on the bitterness of the ingredients themselves.
Scope: Treccani vocabulary dictionary, entry "amaro," sense 2.b.
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ingredient-amaro —is_defined_in_dictionary_as→ "The Treccani vocabulary dictionary defines amaro (also called bitter) as a beverage obtained from various bitter botanical materials, used as an aperitivo for its eupeptic properties (which the dictionary describes as aiding digestion), or, when higher in alcohol content, as a digestivo."How standards define bitterness — the EU spirits regulation and the Argentine food code
The EU's spirits regulation defines bitterness as an independent legal category. Regulation (EU) 2019/787 defines a "bitter-tasting spirit drink or bitter" as a spirit with a predominantly bitter taste (minimum alcohol content 15%) produced by flavouring ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin or a distillate, and it also permits the word "bitter" to be used in the labelling of bitter-tasting liqueurs.
Scope: EU. Regulation (EU) 2019/787, Annex I, category 30, (a)-(d).
Note: The word "amaro" itself does not appear in the English statutory text (confirmed by full-text search). The mapping between the category name "amaro" and this EU category is an editorial arrangement on our part, not a legal synonym.
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ingredient-amaro —corresponds_in_eu_law_to→ ""Bitter-tasting spirit drink or bitter" = a spirits product (minimum 15% ABV) with a "predominantly bitter taste," produced by flavouring ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin or a distillate, or both. The term "bitter" is also permitted on the labelling of bitter-tasting liqueurs. (The word amaro itself does not appear in the statutory text; the correspondence drawn here is an editorial mapping, not one made by the law.)"The Argentine food code defines "Aperitivos" as beverages with an alcohol content of 0.5% to 54% vol at 20°C containing bitter and/or aromatic components, and it permits the designations FERNET, BITTER, AMARGO, and AMARO for products with a predominantly bitter flavour.
Scope: Argentina
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ingredient-fernet —is_defined_in_regulation_as→ "A type of "Aperitivos" (beverages with an alcohol content of 0.5% to 54% vol at 20°C, containing bitter and/or aromatic components to which an appetite-stimulating property may be attributed, obtained from extracts of one or more plants or plant parts permitted under the code), for which the designations FERNET, BITTER, AMARGO, and AMARO are recognized for products with a predominantly bitter flavour."The same code's Article 1129 places the designations FERNET, BITTER, AMARGO, and AMARO on equal footing for "an aperitivo with a predominantly bitter flavour."
Scope: Argentina
Note: CAA Article 1129 lists FERNET, BITTER, AMARGO, and AMARO as co-equal designations for "an aperitivo with a predominantly bitter flavour." This is a bridging claim connecting the existing ingredient-amaro entry (describing the Italian-language-sphere category) with the designations placed side by side under Argentine law.
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ingredient-fernet —is_listed_as→ "One of the co-equal designations under Article 1129 of the Argentine Food Code for "an aperitivo with a predominantly bitter flavour" (FERNET, BITTER, AMARGO, and AMARO are listed side by side)."Where the name "bitters" came from, and its core ingredients
Bitters already appear in the earliest known definitions of the word cocktail. The Balance, and Columbian Repository, dated 5/13/1806, answered a reader's question of "what is a cock tail" by defining cocktail as "a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters," adding that it was popularly also called a bittered sling.
Scope: Hudson, New York, United States, 5/13/1806.
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concept-cocktail —is_defined_in_context_as→ ingredient-aromatic-bittersThe history of aromatic bitters is sometimes traced back to a device for evading liquor taxes. When taxation and licensing restrictions on gin sales tightened in 18th-century England, a historical article records that sellers began adding herbs and marketing the drink as a "medicinal liqueur" to get around the restrictions. In the United States, around 1852-1853, Hostetter's Stomach Bitters was launched in Pittsburgh, and the early product had a high alcohol content, which the article states was as much as 47%.
Scope: England to the United States, 18th-19th centuries.
Note: [Discourse note] The advertised claims are a record of period advertising language, and we do not assert that any such effect exists today.
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ingredient-aromatic-bitters —has_history→ "The historical article records that, when taxation and licensing restrictions on gin sales tightened in 18th-century England, sellers began adding various herbs and marketing the product as a 'medicinal liqueur' to get around the restrictions — a technique later reused repeatedly whenever alcohol-distribution regulation tightened in several countries. In the United States, Hostetter's Stomach Bitters, launched around 1852-1853 in Pittsburgh by David Hostetter and George W. Smith, is cited as a representative example; the early product had a high alcohol content (the article states as much as 47%), and it advertised claimed effects for a wide range of ailments, from indigestion to low spirits."After the 1906 law came into effect, a historical article records that a government chemical analysis found Hamburg Stomach Bitters to be "nothing more than an alcoholic drink with a small amount of flavoring added to sugar water." Hostetter's Stomach Bitters is also recorded as having lowered its alcohol content in response, with the brand itself surviving until 1958.
Scope: United States, from 1906 onward.
Note: [Discourse note] This is a record of the historical fact that a specific brand's labeling was ruled false; this project does not evaluate the effects of that brand or of any current product.
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ingredient-aromatic-bitters —has_history→ "The historical article states that, after the 1906 law came into effect, a government chemical analysis found Hamburg Stomach Bitters to be "nothing more than an alcoholic drink with a small amount of flavoring added to sugar water," and ruled Kaufmann's Sulfur Bitters' labeling — which made claims regarding diabetes and syphilis — to be "false and fraudulent." It records that Hostetter's Stomach Bitters responded by lowering its alcohol content, and that during Prohibition, increasing the herbal content made the flavor "almost unbearable," and the article attributes to this a resulting slump in sales (the brand itself, the article states, survived until 1958)."A reference work explaining aromatic bitters for cocktails names gentian root as one of the core bittering ingredients.
Scope: Aromatic bitters for cocktails, in general.
Note: A general statement from a reference-book entry, not an analytical value showing any individual brand's formulation.
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ingredient-aromatic-bitters —is_flavoured_with→ ingredient-gentian-rootThe same reference work also names cinchona bark as one of the core bittering ingredients.
Scope: Aromatic bitters for cocktails, in general.
Note: A general statement from a reference-book entry, not an analytical value showing any individual brand's formulation. Because this differs in character from the existing ingredient-cinchona-extract entity (defined under Japan's existing food-additive list), it is linked via object_entity_id while keeping the two descriptions distinct.
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ingredient-aromatic-bitters —is_flavoured_with→ ingredient-cinchona-extractDo brands talk about bitterness? — including negative findings
Campari's official website clearly calls its own product "bitter."
Scope: The Campari official website's product page (the company's own description).
Note: One of the few self-descriptions in which the company's official website explicitly uses the word "bitter."
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ingredient-campari —is_presented_as→ "It is "An unmistakable, vibrantly red Italian bitter," characterized by a "vibrant red color and multi-layered, bitter taste." The tasting notes state: "FLAVOR: Pleasantly bitter with a velvety aftertaste. Intense notes of orange, herbs and wood.""Aperol's official FAQ names gentian as one of its disclosed ingredients.
Scope: The Aperol official FAQ (the company's own description).
Note: Connected to the existing ingredient-gentian-root entity. The formulation ratio and the plant part used are not disclosed by Aperol.
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ingredient-aperol —is_flavoured_with→ ingredient-gentian-rootThe same FAQ describes Aperol as a kind of "Italian amaro," and as the sweetest in the amaro family.
Scope: The Aperol official FAQ (the company's own description).
Note: The English rendering "little bitter" is the company's own paraphrase, not a literal translation of amaro (which in Italian simply means "bitter"). We do not judge the accuracy of this paraphrase and record it as-is, as the company's own self-description.
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ingredient-aperol —is_a_type_of→ ingredient-amaroCynar's official website, too, uses the phrase "a fitting bitter aftertaste" in an introductory blurb for its affiliated bars.
Scope: Within the Cynar official website, an introductory blurb recommending affiliated bars (a description from a company-affiliated outlet).
Note: Within the same official website, the main product-description text (the "infusione di 13 erbe" section) never uses any word in the "bitter" family, whereas the word "amaro" (bitter) is used explicitly, just once, only in this promotional blurb recommending affiliated bars. We record this as an unevenness in where the word appears within the same brand's site.
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ingredient-cynar —has_sensory_attribute→ "The Cynar official website's bar-recommendation section states: "Tra una serata anni '60 e un locale che sembra uscito da un vecchio film, ecco svelati i posti migliori per brindare insieme contro il logorio... con il giusto retrogusto amaro, ovviamente!" (Between a '60s evening and a venue that looks like it stepped out of an old film, here are revealed the best places to toast together against logorio... with just the right bitter aftertaste, of course!)"Unicum, meanwhile, describes its flagship product's taste on its company history page as a "well-known bittersweet taste," and, by contrast, explains that its derivative Unicum Next lowered the proportion of bitter herbs.
Scope: Budapest, Hungary. The Zwack Unicum company's official history page (the company's own description).
Note: Formulation details (specific plant species, ratios, method, and aging period) are not disclosed on the company's page, and there is no corroboration from independent compositional analysis. The wording "more than 40 herbs" and "aged in oak casks" appears on the company's history page only in the description of the derivative product Unicum Barista, so it is not recorded here as the composition of the flagship product.
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ingredient-unicum —is_presented_as→ "A taste character the company calls its "well-known bittersweet taste" (a phrase referring to the flagship product's taste, within the introduction section for the derivative product Unicum Riserva). For a separate derivative, "Unicum Next" (developed in 2004), the company explains, by way of contrast, that the proportion of bitter herbs was lowered and citrus flavors were brought to the fore."Depending on the brand, bitterness can be either a banner or a silence. Campari, Aperol, and Cynar call themselves "bitter" or "amaro" (bitter), while Amaro Montenegro and Vecchio Amaro del Capo do not use that word in the body text of the official pages we were able to check. On the same shelf of "amaro," brands that talk about bitterness and brands that don't stand side by side.
Scope: A cross-brand comparison of the official company sites and product labels of the 5 brands covered in this section.
Note: A cross-cutting observation across 5 brands and 6 sources, not the claim of a single source. Whether the marketing vocabulary choice is a deliberate strategy is not stated explicitly by any official source; we flag this as our own interpretation with claim_status=observation and do not generalize it into a rule.
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ingredient-amaro —are_not_uniformly→ "Even among official company pages for brands within the same "amaro" category, self-description of bitterness is not uniform. The official pages of Campari, Aperol, and Cynar each contain places that explicitly use the words "bitter" or "amaro" (bitter), whereas the word "bitter" (or its equivalent) never appeared in the official-page text we were able to check for Amaro Montenegro (gruppomontenegro.com / amaromontenegro.us) or Vecchio Amaro del Capo (vecchioamarodelcapo.com)."Frequently asked
How bitter is gentian's bitterness, exactly?
Gentian root's bitter constituents make up 2 to 8% of the root bark and are mostly secoiridoid glycosides. The main component is gentiopicroside, and amarogentin, present in a smaller amount, has a reported bitterness value of 58,000,000; European pharmacognosy literature describes it as the most bitter substance known. However, this figure itself is presented as a citation even within the report, and the measurement conditions are not stated. Amarogentin's content, at 0.025 to 0.4%, is far smaller than that of gentiopicroside.
How do pharmacopoeias treat the bitterness of herbal bitters?
How pharmacopoeias write about this is not uniform. A German commission's entry for gentian root sets a numeric standard of a bitterness value of 10,000 or higher. The first official Pharmacopoeia of the Kingdom of Italy, on the other hand, records only the preparation method for a drink made by macerating cinchona bark in wine, and this entry itself contains no mention of bitterness. The raw cinchona bark itself has its bitterness stated explicitly in a separate entry. These two sources alone are not enough to establish a general tendency across every country's pharmacopoeias.
Do Campari and Aperol officially say they are bitter?
It depends on the brand. Campari's official website clearly calls its own product bitter. Aperol's official description also names gentian as one of its disclosed ingredients and describes itself as a kind of Italian amaro. Amaro Montenegro and Vecchio Amaro del Capo, on the other hand, do not use these words in the body text of the official pages we were able to check. What was confirmed is limited to what each brand's pages we could reach; this is not a survey covering every page and every language version.
Where does the name "bitters" come from?
The earliest definition we can currently confirm is from a US newspaper in 1806, which answered a reader's question by explaining cocktail as a stimulating drink made of spirits, sugar, water, and bitters, adding that it was popularly also called a bittered sling. A historical article also recounts an origin in which, as taxation and licensing restrictions on gin sales tightened in 18th-century England, sellers added herbs and sold the drink as a medicinal liqueur to get around the restrictions. In the United States, brands calling themselves stomach medicines were launched in the mid-19th century, and after the 1906 law came into effect, a government analysis is recorded as having called other brands' claims into question. These are descriptions from secondary historical articles and have not been confirmed by tracing back to primary sources.
What is not known
- The measurement conditions behind the reported bitterness value of amarogentin, 58,000,000, cannot be confirmed from the report.
- For individual brands' formulation ratios and bitter-compound analysis values, we have not been able to reach a source that measured these independently, beyond the companies' own official descriptions.
- Much of the historical writing on aromatic bitters relies on secondary articles, and we have not been able to confirm the government analysis reports or the original newspapers themselves.
- Investigation of whether brands call themselves bitter has been limited to a subset of pages; a comparison covering every language version and every page has not yet been done.
Read in the encyclopedia
The encyclopedia entries below are in Japanese.
- gentian root — a bitter ingredient containing secoiridoid glycosides, used in bitter liqueurs and apéritifs
- Cinchona succirubra (bark extract) — an extract mainly composed of quinine and others, used for its bittering effect
- amarogentin — a secoiridoid glycoside found in gentian root, described as one of the most bitter substances
- quinine — a bitter cinchona alkaloid also used as a reference stimulus for bitterness
- cynaropicrin — a sesquiterpene lactone attributed with artichoke's bitterness
- wormwood — a bitter herb containing absinthin, used to flavor absinthe, vermouth, and others
- aromatic cocktail bitters — a high-concentration flavoring liquid added to cocktails in small amounts, with gentian and cinchona bark as core ingredients
- amaro (bitter liqueur type) — a general category of sweet-bitter liqueurs made by macerating herbs, bark, citrus peel, and other botanicals
- fernet — an apéritif category based on extracts of bitter and aromatic plants; the Argentine food code places several designations for it on equal footing
- Campari / Aperol / Cynar — Italian bitter-liqueur brands whose official pages we could confirm speaking about bitterness
All entries in this hub (54)
Every encyclopedia entry that belongs to this hub, grouped by category. Entries without an English version open in Japanese.
ingredientglobe artichoke · artichoke leaf · absinthe · Aperol · amaro (bitter liqueur type) · Amaro Benedettino (Montevergine) · vino chinato · Vecchio Amaro del Capo · Unicum (keserűlikőr) · Campari · Cinchona succirubra (bark extract) · tintura di china (Tinctura Chinae) · Kräuterbitter · gentian root · Chartreuse (liqueur) · dandelion root · Cynar · chinpi (Japanese Pharmacopoeia chenpi) · tonic water · wormwood · fernet · bäsk (besk) · vermouth · aromatic cocktail bitters · Amaro Montenegro · Amaro Averna · Vermouth di Torino · Élixir amer de Peyrilhe · saffron
dishAmericano (cocktail) · Spritz · fernet con coca · Negroni
spice or herbcentaury · turmeric · horehound · blessed thistle · yarrow
organismquassia tree · Platycodon grandiflorus
compoundabsinthin · amarogentin · quinine · gentiopicroside · cynaropicrin · centapicrin · thujone (alpha and beta) · picrocrocin · marrubiin
conceptaperitivo · cocktail · bitter-tasting spirit drink or bitter
regionCórdoba (Argentina)
Go deeper in the research notes
- Pharmacopoeias Write Down Bitterness; Monasteries Don't — traces the asymmetry in which pharmacopoeias and spirits regulations state bitterness explicitly, while origin stories keep avoiding the word
- Is Liquor a Refuge for Bitter Plants? — traces how wormwood, gentian, cinchona, and artichoke each find a different place to belong, in regulatory text or on a brand's official site
- Tonic Water and Quinine — A Drink That Puts a Ceiling on Bitterness — follows, with sources, the regulation and measured values of quinine content, and the history of extracting quinine from cinchona bark
- How Bitterness Gets Institutionalized — Bitterness Within a System — lines up the patterns of institutions that officially recognize bitterness, such as the EU's spirits regulation and Argentina's food code
Source ledger
The primary sources and limitations behind the claims collected here can each be checked from the source links inside their cards. The full list is gathered in the Source ledger.
How to cite this page
Aoki, M. (NIGAMI LAB) (2026). Herbal Bitters and Amari: Bitterness. https://nigamilab.com/en/topics/herbal-bitters/
Each claim card has a stable anchor (#clm-…). The dataset is CC BY 4.0; see the data page. Dataset DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22739101