Honor Soccer’s World Cup GOAT with the Intense Refreshment of Fernet & Coke

Sunday Cocktail Corner is a series dedicated to finding just the right libation for the situation.

It did not take long for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, despite embarrassing murmurs about empty seats and hideously overpriced tickets plaguing the event, to start generating major historical additions to soccer lore. In the Argentinean national team’s first 3-0 win against Algeria, in fact, it was none other than the legendary Lionel Messi, now 38 years old and somehow still fresh as a daisy, scoring all three goals to cement his position as professional futbol’s GOAT, especially when it comes to the World Cup, where he drew even with Germany’s Miroslav Klose for the title of the most prolific (male) World Cup scorer of all time with 16 career goals. The overall record, of course, still belongs to Brazilian legend Marta with 17 goals, but Messi may well have his eye on that record as well by the time this tournament is over.

Such brilliance naturally got me thinking about Argentina, a land whose alcohol culture I know relatively little about in comparison with so many others. Unlike neighbors in South America and Central America, the Argentinean drinking culture does not seem to revolve particularly tightly around sugarcane spirits such as rum or Brazil’s beloved Cachaça, nor agave spirits like tequila or mezcal. Rather, the most beloved bottle found behind the Argentinean bar is one that any American hipster bartender would know all too well: fernet. Brought to the country by a large wave of Italian immigration and transformed into a fixture, adopted by a country full of people with bold palates and and a taste for herbal bitterness, fernet (starting of course with the namesake Fernet Branca) became the country’s great alcohol passion. This perhaps makes some sense, if you’ve ever had a bracing cup of Argentinean yerba mate, with its punchy herbal bitterness. Like the hipsters of Chicago might embrace the likes of Malört, the Argentineans took overwhelmingly to the not quite so bitter, fresh and minty profile of Fernet Branca.

And then they mixed it with Coke! No really, fernet and Coke, or fernet con coca as it is widely known, is far and away the most common way that the vast majority of the fernet in Argentina is consumed. And consume it they absolutely do: It is estimated that Argentina alone, despite having only 79% of the population of Italy, and only 13% the population of the United States, consumes 75 PERCENT OF THE ENTIRE GLOBAL FERNET SUPPLY all on its own. With that fact in mind, it’s little wonder that distiller Fratelli Branca opened its only other production plant for the bitter herbal spirit outside of Italy in Buenos Aires, which results in fresher and far cheaper access to Fernet Branca for Argentineans, skirting the country’s import taxes. Locally produced versions of fernet (as a style of amaro or bitter) have likewise proliferated, although Branca is of course the major household brand.

My favorite thing about Argentina was going out with a group of idiots who would start off happy hours by quickly drinking the top half or so off of a 2L Coke and then dumping a fifth of Fernet in there and that would be everyone’s shared beverage for the next hour or so

— Georgia is a Verb (@georgiaisaverb.bsky.social) 9:45 PM · May 17, 2024

And personally, I didn’t quite know what to make of that, reading about Argentina’s ardor for fernet. I have always had something of an indifferent relationship with the spirit–I don’t mind its bitterness, or equally bitter herbal liqueurs/amari, but fernet is so pungently minty in particular that I always found it overwhelming as a flavor profile. It’s one of the few bottles of its type that I’ve never kept on hand in my home, and it can so easily take over a drink recipe that I’ve often avoided ordering cocktails that mention it because I simply assume the drink will be entirely dominated by the flavor of Fernet Branca. The fact that there’s another, even mintier version in the form of Fernet Branca Menta always struck me as hilarious overkill of the highest order. It’s not that I don’t think it has plenty of uses; it’s that I’ve rarely trusted bartenders (who so often love fernet) to use it subtly or sparingly.

But simply mixing it with Coke? That’s the sort of thing I wouldn’t have thought of in a million years, but you can see the twisted logic at work: The syrupy sweetness and vanilla notes of Coca-Cola should work to balance the herbal bitterness of the fernet, hopefully creating something a bit more elegant than it sounds. To be honest, I’ve never tasted this before, but how could 46 million Argentineans be wrong? Let’s find out if this really works.

Fernet and Coke (fernet con coca) recipe

— 1.5 oz Fernet Branca (a shot glass)
— Full sugar Coca-Cola (because it feels like sacrilege to do zero-cal here)

I mean, do you really need directions on this one? Pour the fernet in a glass over ice. Add Coke, or other cola, to desired level to top. Gently stir. “Gold-tinged foam” is apparently desired.

The first thing you notice here is that the fernet has an odd power to transform the foam of the Coke–it becomes much more creamy and mousse-like, and sticks around for longer than you would expect. And heaven help me … I kind of find myself liking the flavor pairing? Or at the very least, I don’t necessarily love Fernet Branca itself, but after tasting fernet con coca, I can see why Coke is actually the perfect thing to combine fernet with, in order to make it as approachable as it possibly can be. The sweetness, caramel and soft vanilla notes of the cola serve to transform the herbal bitterness into something much more gentle. What I’ve described throughout as mintiness, meanwhile, might not really be the right word at all … it’s more like a mentholated cooling effect than the outright flavor of mint leaves. It tastes, for all intents and purposes, how I would expect it to taste if The Coca-Cola Company started offering a product called “Menthol Coke,” except better.

Which is all to say, I can at least to some degree understand how you might enjoy downing large quantities of this stuff in a hot Argentinean bar while watching a World Cup broadcast. It manages to find an unusual midpoint between sweet, bitter, refreshing and indulgent, which are corners of the cocktail world that don’t always come into simultaneous contact with each other.

Rest assured, thousands–dare I say millions?–of fernet con cocas will be consumed this week in the nation, as Lionel Messi and Argentina return to the World Cup pitch to take on Austria on Monday. As you toast to the soccer GOAT, this is definitely the most distinctly Argentinean way to do it.