Federico Malavenda on throwing Fernet parties, myths, and how Fernet-Branca became the bartenders’ handshake

The drinking world is one full of customs, rituals, and rules, for better or worse. Those rules might come from government — which have been taxing spirits since the time of Ivan the Terrible in 1500s Russia and beyond. Or the custom might be more a social norm — of which never talk about politics, sex, or religion at the bar might be the most well known (and the most frequently broken) of these.

There are rules and rituals for how one ought to drink things: drink white wine with fish, say; or how Churchill had his Martini, filled with ice cold gin and a mere bow in the direction of France instead of adding vermouth.

(It’s worth noting, that both those examples are rubbish: drink whichever wine you want with your fish — it’s your fish and wine, after all — and as far as Churchill is concerned, he didn’t drink Martinis, but a daft ritual someone made up and — as is the way with most drinking quotes — ended up attributed to Churchill.

Which brings me to my guest on this week’s episode of Drinks At Work, Federico Malavenda (you may know him as Freddy from Fernet-Branca).

He’s been the ambassador for Fernet-Branca in Australia for the last three years, so he knows a thing or two about drink rituals.

That’s because Fernet-Branca — for as long as I’ve known about it, which is nearly 20 years — has become something of a bartenders’ handshake. It began in the dives and bars of San Francisco, from the 1980s and into the late 1990s, before craft cocktail bartenders around the US got ahold of it, and it spread across the globe.

And since 2012, bartenders have been getting into another custom: Fernet-Branca coins. If you don’t know what they are, well — give this episode a listen, or get along to one of the following Fernet coin parties (you can see the dates below) Freddy is throwing around Australia in the coming weeks.

Fernet Coin Launch Party tour dates

Sydney: 23 February at Uncanny
Melbourne: 2 March at Loch & Key
Adelaide: 4 March at Bank Street Social
Canberra: 9 March at Volstead Repeal
Perth: 10 March at Alfred’s;
Perth: 13 March at Edward & Ida’s
Brisbane: 31 March at Cobbler
Mooloolaba: 1 April at WAT Den

Below, we’ve got a few takeaways from the episode, but as always, give the full podcast a listen in your podcast player of preference.

”Does it go in the fridge or the freezer?”

It’s the question Federico gets asked most in his day to day ambassador life: how do I store it?

“I’d say put one on the shelf, if someone wants to sip it at room temperature,” he says, “and I’d put one in the fridge. I don’t think the freezer is ideal, for one of two reasons: [Fernet-Branca] doesn’t have enough sugar to withstand the freezer temperature, and when you put it in the freezer it changes colour a little bit. And if you store it [upright] and you don’t touch it for four hours, it separates a little bit. If you store it in the freezer, you give it a little shake. The fridge is perfect.”

So there — now you know. Though, as with all things drinks, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

“It’s not just a story to sell it, or to make it palatable to bartenders — it’s naturally what happened.”

I think I became aware of Fernet-Branca sometime around 2007 to 2010; its bracing bitterness quickly became a way of saying you were a bartender, without saying it — and letting the bartender serving you know it, too. And the best part is, this all happened rather organically.

Fernet-Branca was something of a cult drink for lifer bartenders in San Francisco in the 1980s and 1990s,

“That became the bartenders’ handshake,” Federico says. The advent of social media in the mid to late 2000s, and the proliferation of bar shows across the globe, helped spread the word.

”There was a claim that Fernet-Branca was the biggest buyer of saffron in the world.”

No, Federico says — that isn’t the case. “There’s a lot of saffron going on,” he says, “but far from the biggest global buyer. I think it’s an urban legend.”

Which all just adds to the mystique of the brand, right?

There are few botanicals that we’re aware of, though, from the total number of 40 herbs and spices: myrrh, peppermint, rhubarb, saffron, and gentian being among them.

“I had to learn that my day always started with opening my laptop.”

When you’ve spent your adult life working the bar, you become accustomed to the rhythms of hospitality life — you arrive, you clock on, you get your break, then it’s close. There’s something quite regimented about the process.

But, as Federico found out when he entered the brand ambassador world, he had to impose his own kind of working discipline on his day.

On admin, for instance, he says that he “can’t avoid doing that part, otherwise I’d just be a barfly, a paid barfly.”

And I don’t think that paid status would last long once the email inbox gets out of control.

“You just can’t do this job if you’re not well organised,” he says.

For more information on Fernet-Branca, contact your Amber Beverage Australia representative or hit up Freddy on Instagram via @freddy.branca.