Fernet con Coca

Argentina's iconic national cocktail, blending intensely herbal Fernet Branca with sweet cola for a surprisingly harmonious and refreshing highball.

Fernet con Coca became the first Argentine cocktail to achieve IBA Official status when it was added to the Contemporary Classics list in 2020 — a recognition of a drink that had already conquered its home country entirely on the strength of genuine cultural adoption. Fernet-Branca arrived in Argentina with Italian immigrants in the early 20th century, and Fratelli Branca established a Buenos Aires distillery in 1925. The drink was traditionally consumed neat as a digestif for decades. The origin of mixing it with cola is contested: the most documented account points to Oscar Ángel Becerra, a drummer and bartender from Cruz del Eje in Córdoba province, who switched from gin to Fernet on medical advice and began combining it with cola. The mixture grew organically through Córdoba's large university population during the 1980s, and Fratelli Branca's marketing team recognized what was happening and actively promoted the combination from the early 1990s onward. Argentina now consumes more than 75 percent of all fernet produced globally, and the only Fernet-Branca distillery outside Italy sits in Tortuguitas, province of Buenos Aires, producing tens of millions of liters annually. The official Fratelli Branca ratio is 50ml fernet to 150ml Coca-Cola, poured over ice with the Fernet added before the cola to produce the signature two-centimeter espuma foam.