The Myth of Fernet:
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| Two covers of James Hamilton-Paterson's novel Cooking with Fernet-Branca | |
When you hold a shot glass of Fernet-Branca to your nose, the first thing that strikes you is the physicality of the smell, which, if such a thing existed, is like black licorice-flavored Listerine. Put it to your lips and tip it back, and the assault on the throat and sinuses is aggressively medicinal. For many so-called 'Fergins' uninitiated to the drink, it can be accompanied by a feeling that may either bring a tear to the eye or lunch to the esophagus. As a bitter Italian aperitif of more than 40 herbs and spices, it most often gets compared to Campari and Jägermeister, though by measure of accuracy, it's equally similar to Robitussin or Pennzoil.
It's so difficult to love that James Hamilton-Paterson's Booker Prize-nominated novel Cooking With Fernet-Branca is a 281-page sendup of the taste, including stomach-turning recipes like otter with lobster sauce and Fernet-Branca.
If you can imagine getting punched squarely in the nose while sucking on a mentholated cough drop, you'll have an idea of Fernet-Branca's indelicate first impressions.
"I need 12 shots of Fernet with ginger," hollers a waiter at Hobson's Choice, a dyed-in-the-apron Fernet bar on Haight Street. The waiter wipes his forehead and corrects himself: "Fuck it. I'll just take the bottle."
Few are being introduced to the drink at Hobson's Choice tonight, home of the annual "Pouring 20s" party thrown in honor of bar owners and tenders who order at least 20 cases of Fernet-Branca a month. Much to the befuddled curiosity of Haight Street walk-ins, the bar is jammed with people with limitless enthusiasm for the black syrup and a couple of girls in flapper outfits, dressed to suit the evening's pun theme.
"I thought I was going to die the first time I tasted it," says Antoinette Cattani. As the West Coast's Fernet-Branca marketing impresario, the 34-year-old Cattani revels in her duties as tonight's host, but speaking of her first Fernet minibottle -- sufficiently warmed in a car trunk on a sweltering Los Angeles afternoon -- she holds her hands to her throat and sticks out her tongue. "I thought I was going to die. I actually might have gagged. It was terrible."
| If I say to you, "Fernet-Branca," what is it? Yeah, you've had it? It's good isn't it? It does the job. But, oh the taste. | |
| Bill Cosby, "Fernet-Branca" from Fat Albert, 1973 |
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Even in the crowd of Fernet zealots her story is standard.
"I have to admit, my first experience was like, 'What the fuck?'" says 26-year-old Becky Licu, who with Cattani co-owns Barfly Promotions, a company that works with Fernet-Branca. "I wasn't prepared for something like that."
| Source: SF Weekly – ©2005 SF Weekly |
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