Grove Koger

I ran across the image of a poster the other day that gave me pause. It featured an alligator—or a crocodile—standing erect and proudly holding a bottle.

The poster advertised Fernet-Branca, which is both an apéritif and a digestif. In other words, it’s an alcoholic drink that can be served before a meal as well as after. The one stimulates your appetite, while the other aids your digestion, or so the theories go. I myself find that my appetite never needs stimulating, and that my digestion seldom needs help. Besides, why stimulate your appetite when it leads to indigestion?

But … I’ll taste any drink once, as the main character declared in James Branch Cabell’s 1919 novel Jurgen. And while I’m at it, I enjoy sharing, so Maggie and I joined friends over drinks and hors d’oeuvres on the leafy terrace of a local restaurant the other day. And we began with a sip of Fernet-Branca.   

Briefly, Fernet-Branca is herbal, sweet, spicy, and bitter. It was originally produced in 1845 by Milan’s Fratelli Branca Distillerie, and is still produced today in Milan. It’s made from a secret recipe that includes rhubarb and chamomile and another 25 ingredients, according to the official Fernet-Branca site. But rhubarb? The site helpfully explains that “natural medicine [meaning, presumably, naturopathy and the like] considers rhubarb an excellent remedy for improving digestive function, while in cooking it is commonly used to make … jams, preserves, candies, and infusions.” (Plus, for you cooks, excellent pies!) Chamomile, on the other hand, is “rich in sedative and calming properties,” and so on. You can check the Fernet-Branca site to read more about a few of the other ingredients.

A variation on the drink was introduced during the mid-1960s. It seems that opera singer Maria Callas liked her Fernet with mint syrup, so, soon enough, her myriad fans began doing the same. This, in turn, prompted the company to introduce Branca Menta. (A bit of trivia: the name is actually Brancamenta, but the label breaks the word in two.)                

For what it’s worth, Fernet-Branca is highly popular in San Francisco, while it’s equally popular in Argentina. The drink was introduced to the South American country by Italian immigrants in the nineteenth century, and its popularity has increased enormously in the decades since. (This may say something about Argentine cooking, which I understand relies heavily on beef.) Contributing to the trend is the popularity of Fernet con Coca—Fernet mixed with Coca Cola. In fact, Argentina boasts the only Fernet-Branca distillery outside of Italy.

To return to our experience on that leafy terrace, I must confess that we moved on to other beverages. But in case you’re still wondering about that animal in the poster, Fernet-Branca’s internet site identifies it as a crocodile, and describes the beast as “an iconic symbol of 1920s campaigns,” so that’s one mystery solved. But … could that be why the decade is remembered as the Roaring Twenties?

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