Phoenyx’s packaging game is strong, they have a polished web site, the whole business seems quite opaque and anonymous, but the principals seem to be one Ben Gordon and one “Robert B” and they’re based in Sevenoaks. I suspect @Philip is acquainted with them. I’ve seen reports online that their Hostetter’s is very much in the Campari-esque red bitter category—as one might expect—but with markedly less sugar. The product appears to cost ~1/3 more than Campari. It’s clearly not that hard to compound a red bitter at this point—which isn’t to say it’s easy to make a great one—but why these guys would have exclusive access to the recipes and production details of a long defunct Pittsburgh stomach bitters is unclear, so I would presume flimflammery until proven otherwise. Their first release, Khoosh, is at least of an English product, albeit an extraordinarily obscure one. They characterize it as a bitter orange liqueur, which is certainly not consistent with any prior characterization I have encountered.
Are these products legit recreations? Seems extremely unlikely, as both have been gone almost a century. Do I really care? Not really. For me, this is the same situation as The Bitter Truth Bogart’s: I can’t take seriously their claims of authenticity, but I can take seriously how well the product works. So if it turns out the Hostetter’s is a better Campari than Campari, well, bully for them! The main angle for the Khoosh seems to be mixing with Champagne—pretty niche—but if it’s delicious, ok then.
San Francisco Bitters Company struck me as someone’s cottage industry that was deliberately opaque and under-the-radar, possibly to avoid potential legal attention. Regardless, they overpromised on an epic scale, and I’ve never laid eyes on a product, let alone tasted one.