Is This The Most Awful Drink Ever?

This is Fernet Branca. You may recognise the label, having seen it in a dusty corner of a bar’s back shelf, among that plethora of liqueurs you’ve never seen anybody buy or drink but which nevertheless seem perennially to be stocked “just in case”.

I have, of late, being trying these concoctions wherever I can. This started off with my and Elvira’s 2011 trip to Prague, where I discovered Becherovka – which is right now my favourite drink in the universe (I am also, I think, the only British Campari drinker aged under 70).

So, I embarked upon a voyage of discovery into what the Teutons call “Kräuterlikör” and the Latins call “Amaro” – spirit-based liqueurs flavoured with herbs of an essentially bitter nature.

The first thing I discovered is that this is not a conventional British thing to drink or express an appetite for. The only such thing you are likely to come across in your local boozer is Jägermeister – and the only reasons I can see for its unique position is:

• Jägermeister’s (relatively) colossal advertising spending; and
• The Jägerbomb – which adds Red Bull to the equation, so as to combine ridiculous amounts of alcohol, sugar AND caffeine in a single gulp.

Indeed, I was recently on a works drinks evening, when some poor drunken subordinate suggested a round of Jägerbombs. As the boss-in-attendance, everyone was very keen that I should be included in this round – but I insisted that – as a parent – I would not drink Red Bull in the evening. I have to sleep, you know, and I observe a strict regimen of uppers in the morning and downers in the evening.

So I asked, to the bemusement of the barman and my colleagues, for my Jäger neat. And then we all necked everything in our glasses, so that nobody really tasted anything.

On another works occasion, I was told I was the only person my colleagues had ever seen to sip Jägermeister from a shot glass. They probably concluded that this is because I am a huge ponce who thinks he’s “oooh so continental” but is in fact just odd.

Anyway, I went from Jägermeister to Becherovka to Unicum to Kuemmerling to Rammazotti, eventually pitching up at Fernet Branca. Where I came to a grinding halt.

After a few mouthfuls I poured a big glass of it into a potted plant. The plant did not immediately wilt in an amusing manner, but it probably did not do it any good.

Now, whilst drinking these other drinks I have frequently been told by others that they are disgusting and that how I can possibly stomach them is incomprehensible.

That is how I felt about Fernet Branca – which is apparently popular in some parts of the world. The article linked to here describes is as tasting like “black licorice-flavored Listerine".

Certainly, my immediate thoughts were of oral hygiene:

• Firstly, because it tastes like toothpaste and generates the same burning sensation and unwillingness to swallow as mouthwash
• Secondly, because my panicked brain declared “oh my god what the hell have you just put in your mouth?”

Now, I know that everybody hates their first beer, their first cigarette, their first whisky, their first Becherovka – and some people then persist and come to acquire the taste by bloody-minded perseverence in the face of their body’s strenuous objections.

But this was different.

When I tasted this I assumed a joke was being played on me. Perhaps that bottle has lain there, untouched, since before the First World War and it has, in fact, gone very badly off.

Later, when I read the article I linked to earlier, I realised to my stark amazement that IT IS SUPPOSED TO TASTE LIKE THAT.

I presume it has an eagle on the logo because Fernet Branca tastes like the semi-digested carrion this noble bird regurgitates to feed its young. 

I thought I could drink anything. I was so wrong and felt suitably abashed. Everybody has a limit, and I found something that is WAAAAAY beyond mine. It was a lesson – and not one I shall quickly forget.

By the way, I must add that I would NEVER normally throw away a drink, even if I believed it to be disgusting and over a hundred years old. Fortunately, we were on an all-inclusive package holiday at the time – so I made an exception, poured the Fernet Branca into the poor, unsuspecting plant and washed the foul taste away with a free pint of Disaronno. 

XTREMISM in the shower

This is my shower gel. It is “Xtreme” shower gel.

As we all know, in the field of products the more “extreme” something is, the better it is – and if you can mis-spell “extreme” it is even more extreme, and therefore even better.

So while in the field of consumer goods extremism is a undeniably A Good Thing, it seems odd that we do not welcome it in other fields as well. Perhaps this is due to the fuddy-duddy spelling of "extreme" with a lower case "e" at the start. 

Al Qaeda, for example, could rebrand itself as Islam Xtreme to appeal more to the key 18-25 demographic. The EDL could try to break out of its C2/D/E ghetto by calling itself Xtreme Racist Halfwits.

Nevertheless, as I showered this morning, I must confess to being somewhat at a loss in seeking to discern in precisely what the xtremity of this gel consisted.

I did not get a sense of freefalling from a light aircraft. I did not feel as though I doing stunts on a BMX bike. I did not even feel as though I was pouring a can of drink into my mouth from a height of about 8 to 12 inches away to the sound of powerful rock guitar music. 

These are all recognisably xtreme sensations, but I was at a loss to detect the shower gel precipitating any of them within me.  

Then I looked at the “flavour” of the gel. As you can see, it purports to be made of – or at least to smell of – “Exhilarating Grapefruit, Amber and Cedarwood”.

I have never encountered grapefruit, amber and cedarwood in the flesh at the same time, so I can’t really say that to do so would not be exhilarating. When I have encountered them separately, however:

• The only time I have felt exhilaration in connection with a grapefruit was upon successfully dodging a thrown one.
• Amber – it is hard to think of a more inert substance than fossilized tree resin, and therefore one less likely to cause exhilaration, unless it has hidden qualities I am unaware of.
• All I know about cedarwood is that you should not stand underneath cedar trees during lightning storms. Having a tree fall to the ground around you in flames is probably quite exhilarating, but not in the sort of way one is keen to experience early each morning.

Upon calm reflection (after the exhilaration had ended), I wondered precisely what part the amber was playing in this recipe.

• Grapefruit – yes, I can smell that. It is citrusy.
• Cedarwood – errr...I am prepared to acknowledge that some wood smells and therefore that had I not the olfactory acuity of noseless dog (though I hasten to add, I do NOT smell terrible) that this may have been present in the rich bouquet offered up.
• Amber. What EXACTLY is amber supposed to smell of? The internet says that you can – theoretically – extract an oil from amber which smells (unsurprisingly) of pine. So far, so much my shower gel is making smell like a toilet bowl.

Maybe it is not contributing to the perfume? Perhaps I am supposed to be exfoliating with the preserved exoskeletons of prehistoric mosquitoes encased in the amber?

So, intrigued, I checked the ingredients to see what the amber is bringing to the party.

This is in English, you may be surprised to discover. What will probably not surprise you is to learn that this substance contains neither grapefruit, nor amber, nor cedarwood.

The question then remains: did they come up with the name first and try, subsequently, to make something that smelled of that? So what exactly was the amber adding? 

Or did they instead make the smell and then try to describe it? In which case, who smelled the amber?

I am going to ask the Avon lady next time I see her.