After that she wouldn’t “get her nose close to a bottle of Fernet for many years,” preferring gin and tonic. She started swallowing the liquor toward the end of nights with friends because she liked “the refreshing and sweet taste of Coke.” Whatever Argentina’s drinkers are suffering from, clearly this “disgusting” Italian medicine is the cure.

Fernet-Branca is a bitter, aromatic herbal liqueur that was created in 1845 by Bernardino Fernet. It is made from a secret recipe of over 27 different herbs and spices, including saffron, myrrh, aloe, rhubarb, chamomile, and gentian root. The herbs and spices are macerated in alcohol and then aged in oak barrels for a minimum of one year. 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. After three years in Buenos Aires, I now have a very strong and passionate relationship with Fernet,” she says.I’m a product of the U.S. university system, meaning I spent the better part of four years of my life drinking nauseatingly sweet grain alcohol mixed with Kool-Aid,” says Emily Sarah, managing partner of a financial advice company in Buenos Aires. It had been two years since I’d seen anyone drink Fernet in Italy,” says Italian nightclub promoter Giovanni Digliardi, who did a double take the first time he stepped into an Argentine bar and was immediately offered a “Fernecola” – Fernet mixed with Coke.

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.Juan Chico, manager of BARTOK bar and restaurant in the upscale Palermo neighborhood in Buenos Aires, says Fernet is the most widely consumed liquor in the restaurant. 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.