Fernet Buck

A crisp, refreshing Buck-style highball with Fernet-Branca, fresh lime, and ginger beer — bitter meets bubbly.

The Fernet Buck applies the Buck cocktail template — spirit, fresh citrus, and ginger beer in a tall glass — to Fernet-Branca, the intensely herbal, minty Italian amaro that is among the most polarizing spirits in the bartender's arsenal. Fernet-Branca was created in Milan in 1845 by Bernardino Branca, who combined 27 herbs, roots, and spices including gentian, rhubarb, chamomile, cardamom, aloe, saffron, and myrrh in a grape spirit base. Originally marketed as a medicinal tonic for stomach complaints, cholera prevention, and menstrual cramps — as was common for commercial spirits of the era — the product gradually became Italy's defining digestivo, consumed primarily as a post-meal stomach settler. Fernet-Branca spread to Argentina through Italian immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where it became enormously popular and is now consumed primarily mixed with Coca-Cola as Fernet con Coca — a combination that accounts for a significant share of the spirit's global sales. In the United States, Fernet-Branca developed a specific association with the bartending industry: it became the unofficial shot of the service industry, its intensely bitter character functioning as a mark of professional toughness. The Buck format at Deep Ellum in Allston, Boston softened the spirit's intensity with the ginger beer's spice and the lime's acid, producing a more accessible introduction to the amaro for the uninitiated.