Discover Ferroviario, Argentina’s iconic Fernet cocktail

“You have perfect aim,” said the man behind the bar. “That’s the only drink I can’t make. I’ll get the muchacho.”.”

It’s exactly 7:30 on a chilly Tuesday night, and the muchacho is still setting up tables on the sidewalk. It’s early at El Boliche de Roberto, a 130-year-old bar in Buenos Aires’ Almagro neighborhood. Roberto’s has hosted tango bands every night of the week for as long as anyone can remember. The regulars won’t start crowding around the tables and playing the piano in the back for another two hours. Julián steps out from the street and begins to mix our requested cocktail. Railwaya spritz made with fern and red vermouth that can be found in canteens all over the country.

In Argentina, fernet and vermouth are staples, as common as salt and pepper. Argentines drink about 19 million liters of fernet and 8 million liters of vermouth per year, representing almost 80 percent of global consumption The tradition dates back more than a century. Between 1880 and 1930, six million immigrants arrived in the country from all over the world, but especially from Italy and Spain. With them was born the tradition of chatting over a copetín, an after-work drink consumed in bars and almacenes, small grocery stores that served glasses of wine, amaro and vermouth.

In Buenos Aires bars, you’ll see amari and vermouth on the cocktail menu, such as the Claritya local extra-dry Martini or the humble fernet con coca. For many, the ubiquity of these two spirits means that combining them isn’t alchemy, it’s a given. There’s no set recipe. Each bar has its choice of glass, stirred or stirred, ice cold or neat. At Roberto’s El Boliche, bartenders add a generous splash of freshly squeezed lemon juice, a controversial accompaniment I’ve never seen at any other bar. Julián says, “That’s the way we’ve always done it.” Apparently, his colleague never understood how the lemon works.

A cocktail manual from 1936, 1000 mistakes by Elvezio Grassi, contains the oldest recipe similar to the Ferroviario that Buenos Aires bartender and amateur drinks historian Fede Cuco was able to track down. Grassi was the owner of Bar Argentino in Lugano, Switzerland. Although his ties to Argentina are unclear, his preface includes glowing reviews from figures such as tango singer Carlos Gardel and President Roque Sáenz Peña. Grassi’s recipe is part of a collection of Americansan ancient Italian drink made with bitters, vermouth, and soda water. The Americano Branca is a long drink made with Fernet-Branca, sweet vermouth, seltzer water, and a lemon twist, served with a long spoon.

By the 1930s, it was probably already a common drink in Argentina. It was inexpensive and in all-day bars where customers came to chat for hours, there was a need for a drink that people could order multiple times without having to pay an exorbitant bill.

“I worked at a local gym where they made the Ferret and the Cinzano in the fridge and served it in a glass without even adding ice,” says Cuco, who remembers making the drink the old-fashioned way: measuring out the quantities by eye. “Any bar can make it. There was no official recipe for the cocktail until Campari developed advertising campaigns for Cinzano that always included the Ferroviario.”

“Ferroviario” is Spanish for “railway,” and while many attribute the cocktail’s name to the drink’s popularity among the country’s railroad workers, it’s likely a narrative strategy. You’ll likely see a Ferroviario on menus at newer Buenos Aires restaurants that offer bar programs. But at all-day cantinas and cafes, it often appears as a “fernet con Cinzano” or is ordered off-menu as a measure of fernet cut with vermouth, a build-your-own Americano. Tradition has it that diners top off their drink to taste with a siphon of soda water. Some add extra spritzes throughout the cocktail to extend its life.

“Some have called it a “Porteñito,” Cuco explains. It’s short for “porteño,” a name meaning “Buenos Aires,” where locals often use the affectionate ending “-ito” or “-ita.” “I think they named it Ferroviario because the other name wasn’t going to go over well outside of Buenos Aires. Nobody likes porteños.”

I stop at Doña Cata, an 84-year-old almacén and bar in the working-class neighborhood of Valentín Alsina. It’s a rarity in Buenos Aires: the city no longer grants new permits to grocery stores to prepare alcoholic beverages. The regulars are neighbors, who come here for a copetín after work like clockwork, and increasingly young people nostalgic for the old-school drinking culture. The most popular drink is fernet with Cinzano, although they call it Cañonazo, or “cannonball.” Owner Ariel Fiel looks at the “bottom of the drink” with fernet on ice before adding a 60ml measure of vermouth and sparkling water, which customers can top up as they wish.

“I don’t really know why they call it that,” says Fiel, who grew up in the neighborhood and bought the business from the original owners 15 years ago. “People joke that after a few drinks, it’s like being hit by a cannonball.”