Fernet-Branca Liqueur, 70 cl

Product Information

We met here for the first time, the womanizer Fernet I had heard so much about,” romanticizes Yasmin Simeonova, an architect from Macedonia working in Buenos Aires. He’s still baffled by the fact that Argentinians pair the beverage with food at dinners and social events. Although the bar displays an array of spirit and wine bottles, Chico sells on average 70 glasses of Fernet a day. He claims that the central Argentine city of Cordoba alone consumes more Fernet than all of Italy, largely because of its strong Italian heritage. She started swallowing the liquor toward the end of nights with friends because she liked “the refreshing and sweet taste of Coke.” To some palates, the incredibly bitter Italian liquor is worse than cough syrup. Bizarrely though, in Argentina it’s so popular that the country now consumes more than 75% of all Fernet produced globally. And since the drink is traditionally mixed with Coca-Cola in an ice-filled glass, it also contributes to making Argentina one of the planet’s highest Coke consumers.

After three years in Buenos Aires, I now have a very strong and passionate relationship with Fernet,” she says. Typically, the initial tasting is a hostile experience, but the drink eventually wins over its audience. Perhaps its most important watershed moment in the bartending community, however, began in San Francisco, where, today, 70% of its consumption in the US goes down. Someone who has a good knowledge of its industry appeal there is Antoinette Cattani who was professionally slinging Fernet-Branca at bartenders during the late nineties. Having moved from LA to San Francisco to take on the brand, she took what was already a bit of a bartender’s secret and magnified it. Over at Notting Hill’s Latin America-inspired Viajante 87, Pietro Collina and Veronica Di Pietrantonio are turning mere mortals into Fernet lovers by paying homage to a popular Cordoban drink – the 90210 – named for its measurements being nine-tenths Fernet-Branca, two ice cubes and one tenth Cola. “We wanted to recreate it and make it a little bit more palatable and refreshing, not such a polarising drink,” explains Collina of their version’s inception.Budgets weren’t big but Cattani shifted samples, did discounts and held industry nights in dive bars, tying Fernet-Branca together with music and art: “I went to the places no-one else wanted to go.” With bartenders recommending the drink to their customers and an injection of budget in the early 2000s, she could do things on a much bigger scale, rewarding bars with parties, throwing huge Roaring 20s events and building the legacy of the Fernet-Branca we know today: “I had Fernet tunnel vision, all day, every day.” Whatever Argentina’s drinkers are suffering from, clearly this “disgusting” Italian medicine is the cure. Fernet owes its unconventional taste to a top secret recipe that involves about 40 different herbs including saffron, rhubarb, cardamom, myrrh, chamomile, aloe and gentian root. Records the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie.

Totally disgusting,” she confesses, letting out a “bleargh” and lowering her eyebrows, still outraged by the memory. When psychologist Florencia Martinez, a native of Gualeguaychu in Argentina’s Entre Rios province, first sipped it, the verdict was straightforward: she poured it away in horror. It may have been born in Italy, but it has been bred around the world. Specifically, in 1860 it was commercialised in Argentina (where a majority of the population claimed Italian heritage) and a factory was opened in Buenos Aires in 1935. Fernet con Cola is now ubiquitous with Argentinian drinking culture – it’s said that Argentinians consume more than three times the amount consumed on home soil in Italy. But the subtlest aspect of the book is its underlying theme. It's no coincidence that the Italian words for "strange" and "foreigner" are cognate. Anyone able to gain legal entry to Australia can become an Australian, but however long you live in Italy and however proficient you may be in the language, you can no more become Italian than you can Welsh. Thus foreigners who live there have a tendency to become ... well, a bit strange. In Gerald's case this takes many forms, not least continually singing - very loudly, from Marta's point of view - extracts from imaginary arias whose lyrics consist of the Italian for "Please don't litter" and "See date on base of tin". Having played this game, my only regret is that no space could be found for a personal favourite, the very moving (at least to smokers) "Fumare è severamente vietato, ah!" from Bellini's Norma di Legge.

Fernet Branca 70cl

While my friends in San Francisco will argue Fernet-Branca is best served as a shot, it is traditionally served over plenty of ice a with a slice of lemon or orange. In Argentina they drink Fernet-Branca long over ice mixed with seven parts cola. The drink is so popular there that the Branca family set up a distillery in Buenos Aires in 1935. There was such a love for Fernet here that had been behind the bar for 40 years,” she tells me of the passing down of Fernet to new bartending generations. “The magic just started happening. I was doing probably 25 events a month with guys and girls promoting it and working with the distributor. I was so obsessed with it, there was so much passion, it was so contagious and all about the bartenders. I had 35-50 of the best bartenders in San Francisco and we just went crazy with it.” This cookie is set by Rubicon Project to control synchronization of user identification and exchange of user data between various ad services.

After that she wouldn’t “get her nose close to a bottle of Fernet for many years,” preferring gin and tonic. Trying it out was like a kiss, a bitter kiss that burns your tongue and makes your eyes close in disgust.” At night, especially during weekends, youngsters and older people alike roam the streets with their containers of mixed drinks. What does Fernet Branca taste like? “Imagine a Negroni’s nightmare and you’re not far off,” says Frank Fellows, a chef who’s had more shots of Fernet Branca than you’ve had hot dinners. Frank is the Frank behind Frank’s Vegan Kitchen and one of the many pan shakers out there who enjoys a Fernet at the end of every service. “The first time I drank Fernet was after my first meal at St John Bread & Wine,” Frank tells Mob, “the chef told me it would help after I’d inhaled so much bone marrow.” Speaking as a man who has eaten too much bone marrow on more than one occasion, I can confirm that chef was right.

Review and Tasting

Once blended, these various different botanical macerations are aged for 12 months in huge Slovenian oak vats of between 15,000 and 20,000 litres each. These vats are beautiful examples of the cooper's craft and incredibly there are more than 300 of them in the cellars of the distillery.