- 05 Jun 11, 04:06#259385
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point. 
"Fernet-Branca has in it many wonderful things!"
Precisely which wonderful things has been a closely guarded secret of the Branca family for generations, but it's known that the grape base is infused with aloe, myrrh, chamomile, cardamom, and a hearty offering of saffron, a key ingredient. By accounting for an estimated 75 percent of the world's saffron consumption, the Branca family essentially controls the market price of the spice -- which at about $900 a pound is easily among the most expensive edibles in the world. A spice that also, in great enough quantity, can be made into a little something called MDMA, known to club kids as Ecstasy.
The wonderful things rumored to be in the liqueur include codeine, mushrooms, fermented beets, coca leaf, gentian, rhubarb, wormwood, zedoary, cinchona, bay leaves, absinthe, orange peel, calumba, echinacea, quinine, ginseng, St. John's wort, sage, and peppermint oil. If you ask most self-schooled Fernet authorities to list the 40 ingredients, you'll get 100 certain answers.
"Part of the reason no one has ever been able to replicate it," says Cattani, "is because you can't just get all the ingredients in one area. It comes from around the world."
With the Drug Regulation Reform Act of 1978, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms took a more investigative sip of the drink and tightened controls on Fernet-Branca, forcing one of the few changes in the recipe in order to bring opiates down to legal levels.
Today Fernet-Branca is 80 proof, with only trace amounts of opiates. Bottles of the earlier opiate-rich brew are rare and can be identified by true Fernet-Branca scholars upon a close examination of the label.
I grew up with it in Switzerland, so I must have had some pre-1978
Any other connaisseurs on here?
Precisely which wonderful things has been a closely guarded secret of the Branca family for generations, but it's known that the grape base is infused with aloe, myrrh, chamomile, cardamom, and a hearty offering of saffron, a key ingredient. By accounting for an estimated 75 percent of the world's saffron consumption, the Branca family essentially controls the market price of the spice -- which at about $900 a pound is easily among the most expensive edibles in the world. A spice that also, in great enough quantity, can be made into a little something called MDMA, known to club kids as Ecstasy.
The wonderful things rumored to be in the liqueur include codeine, mushrooms, fermented beets, coca leaf, gentian, rhubarb, wormwood, zedoary, cinchona, bay leaves, absinthe, orange peel, calumba, echinacea, quinine, ginseng, St. John's wort, sage, and peppermint oil. If you ask most self-schooled Fernet authorities to list the 40 ingredients, you'll get 100 certain answers.
"Part of the reason no one has ever been able to replicate it," says Cattani, "is because you can't just get all the ingredients in one area. It comes from around the world."
With the Drug Regulation Reform Act of 1978, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms took a more investigative sip of the drink and tightened controls on Fernet-Branca, forcing one of the few changes in the recipe in order to bring opiates down to legal levels.
Today Fernet-Branca is 80 proof, with only trace amounts of opiates. Bottles of the earlier opiate-rich brew are rare and can be identified by true Fernet-Branca scholars upon a close examination of the label.
I grew up with it in Switzerland, so I must have had some pre-1978
Any other connaisseurs on here?
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point. 
