San Francisco’s Love Affair With Fernet & Why
By Cameron Fletcher
You may vaguely recognize the bottle, or the logo of an eagle carrying the bottle, but you will never mistake the taste for anything else.
Say it with me: Fernet Branca. Did you roll the second R? Good, because without that subtle accent revealing the Italian heritage of this unique liquor, one risks sounding uncouth. This is a risk worth taking though because once initiated into the elite club of Fernet aficionados, you will have shed any traces of country bumpkin and emerge a dazzling, cultured urbanite.
I say that with my tongue tucked deeply inside the cheek. However, to Fernet lovers, any pretension is just an accidental by product of an almost cult-like enthusiasm for the spirit so heavily imbibed in San Francisco. A city that harbors a unique thirst for the unassuming digestivo, a mélange of herbs and licorice with subtle hints of camaraderie.
In nearly a decade of bartending all over San Francisco, I’ve had my fair share and then some. And for many who work behind the bar in this town, it is often the shot of choice. Fernet delivers a punch of complex flavor as an invigorating stimulus in an over-stimulated environment.
Although it’s alcohol content is the same as whiskey, it seems to have less of an effect on the decimal placement of your BAC, and some studies even point to it enhancing pre-frontal cortex activity (my source? Some guy at the end of the bar once).
But that’s not why it is so eagerly consumed, with San Francisco a leading global importer of Fernet. To bartenders, the drink represents something abstract and symbolic. It signifies an appreciation for the nuanced and weird, which is how many would describe their first taste. San Francisco prides itself on affection for the obscure and will go to great lengths to incorporate anything that might beguile new guests.
As I tended bar, quite often someone would saddle up to my counter and order a shot of fernet, or have it mixed with ginger. My response would typically be: “Where do you pour?”
While presumptuous, I was usually correct in guessing their line of work. Beyond the drink order, the Homo Bartenderis is a sub-genus that is rather easy to identify. Tattoos, piercings, a subtle swagger, and a tired, skeptical look in the eyes, all pointed to life behind what’s colloquially known as “the stick”.
There were other indicators – cash in hand, bar patron etiquette, and of course the standard wardrobe color palate of either black, dark black, light black, or medium black. But a call for Fernet was, in a sense, the secret handshake between us. A way of non-explicitly confirming our shared commonalities – the struggles and joys that accompany this line of work. This would usually prompt me to join them for a toast, and many a friendship were borne of this ritual.
But for the tourists who visited my bar, blithely unaware of this little green bottle and its botanical prowess, I would often insist a tasting as a means of cultural immersion. I’d wax poetically it’s bitter and herbaceous flavor profile, the history and lore, and then enjoy, perhaps a little too much, the face they’d make after taking their first shot.
While the actual faces would change over the years, the initial reaction would not. The result was always a contorted expression, sometimes a near gag, and then the look of betrayal towards me, as if I tricked them.
“What WAS that?!”
“It tastes like Christmas”
“Did you just serve me medicine??”
Milan, Italy
Well, sort of. The origins of Fernet date back to the mid-19th century in Milan, Italy, where a
man named Bernardino Branca formulated the original recipe of herbs, barks, and spices. It was
initially an anti-choleric; a medical treatment to encourage dilation of the stomach. This would
help stimulate hunger in patients sick with cholera.
Fernet went on to be marketed as a medicinal elixir, considered a portion of vitality able to cure
a variety of ailments. Business thrived during the prohibition; the medicinal angle allowed it to
remain legal until the repeal of 1922. It falls under the amaro category of liqueurs, an Italian-
style preparation that is enjoyed post-meal as a digestif. It contains tinges of cardamom, notes
of chamomile, a splash of myrrh, and delicate accents of rhubarb – but the full recipe of Fernet
is known only by the owner, Niccolò Branca di Romanico, and is tightly safeguarded behind
closed doors. I like to imagine it as handwritten and stored under his pillow at night.
While I bore witness to the Branca family’s creation assimilate itself into the zeitgeist of San
Francisco, it wasn’t until I visited Argentina that I fully grasped the sense of community Fernet
brings. The country is responsible for the bulk of it’s worldwide sales, celebrating it as a cultural
staple on par with empanadas and alfajores. Fernet and Coke is unofficially their national
cocktail, and at one point became such a predictable and consistent order that bars refused to
carry it as a means to move other products.
Advertisement for the Argentine Centennial, 1910. Source wikipedia.
It was my last night in Buenos Aires and I wanted to splurge on a final meal. I sat at the bar of
an upscale restaurant and noticed the bartender pour some Fernet and coke into an oddly
shaped vessel. Something to sip on throughout his shift, as bartenders do. It had been years
since I was employed in that occupation, but I watched him with a tinge of nostalgia. He worked
the bar with rhythmic grace, and his wine pour was impeccable.
At first I wasn’t in the mood to talk much. I had missed my flight earlier and the stresses of
returning home were fully occupying my pre-frontal cortex (which, turns out, was never
improved from drinking Fernet… I think that guy lied).
But the bartender had a natural charisma that got me to open up. The bar was dead and I spoke
with him long after my meal ended, learning things about the country that can only be gleaned
by meeting outgoing locals. Although I’d encountered a stiff wall of language barriers on this
trip, his English was well polished.
“Where’d you learn?” I asked.
“American television, but mostly the show “Friends”.
When I told him about San Francisco’s love affair with Fernet, his eyes lit up.
“Do you see that?” He said as he pointed to his cup, the strange ceramic container I half noticed
earlier.
Fernet Branca with coke and ice.
I squinted my eyes and it clicked…the cup was in the shape of the bottom half of a Coca-Cola
bottle. He explained they are made as an homage to a common experience in Argentinian
youth, a time when friends are traveling to the discothèque but are in need of a disposable
cocktail for the ride.
The solution? Cut off the upper part of an empty coke bottle, burn the
edges with a lighter to smooth out the rim, and pour in the fernet and coke. I found this cultural
tidbit uniquely enchanting. It was a reminder there are certain things in this life you can’t learn
from books or online, and to really get to the bottom of something, you’ve got to stumble into
a stranger’s world and look around.
And what better way to facilitate these types of conversations? Well, a shot of Fernet of course.
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