Fernet-Branca celebrates Día del Amigo
Italian amaro Fernet-Branca marked Friend’s Day (20 July) in Argentina with Fernet and cola Highballs and celebrations of togetherness.
The Milan-based brand’s Fernet & Friends campaign encouraged the people of Argentina to come together and share Fernet and cola, served long over ice.
This bitter Highball, which emerged in Córdoba in the 1980s, is widely considered to be Argentina’s unofficial national drink.
The simple cocktail is known locally in Argentina as a ‘Fernando’ or ‘Fernandito’.
According to Fratelli Branca Distillerie, the serve ‘represents tradition built around friendship, where people continue to come together over the drink to celebrate togetherness and the traditions that join generations’.
Friend’s Day is an unofficial celebration in Argentina that is often marked with gatherings and barbecues.
It was proposed by dentist, professor and musician Enrique Ernesto Febbraro after he was inspired by the sense of togetherness fostered by the Apollo 11 moon landing on 20 July 1969.
Fernet-Branca was first made in Milan in 1845. The bitter liqueur was popularised in Argentina in the early-20th century by Italian immigrants.
Consumption of the product in the South American nation increased so rapidly that in 1935 the brand established a local distillery in Buenos Aires to meet demand.
In addition to its popularity in Argentina, Fernet-Branca is widely regarded as a ‘bartender’s handshake’ by hospitality workers around the world.
Earlier this year, Fratelli Branca announced that it would revive the Fernet-Branca coin, a token indented to be passed between bartenders as they share shots of the bitter amaro.
The coin was introduced in 2013 in recognition of the custom of San Francisco bartenders drinking Fernet-Branca together as they changed shifts.
Branca International recently invested in ‘flavour-first alcohol removal’ company Altr.
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