The Cabinet: Branca Menta

~ La Divina x Fernet Branca ~

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~ BRANCA MENTA ~
A dark, minty amaro with a lick of sweetness / 30% ABV / c£27+ for 700ml (Cheaper in Italy)
Friends with: dark spirits (brandy, bourbon, rum) and Italian vermouth. Actually gin, too. Other amari. Tonic. Ginger. Coca-Cola. Cream. Chocolate.

THE world owes much to Maria Callas (1923-1977). We have the Greek-American soprano to thank for some of the most heart-stopping vocal performances yet captured on tape; for the modern archetype of the tragic diva; for the psychobaggage that we bring to all subsequent divas from Bianca Castafiore to Amy Winehouse. (“Wherever I am it is hectic”, she once said.) We must also - and this last one may surprise you - lay garlands at her feet for Branca Menta, the peppermint version of Fernet-Branca, which she invented. Sort of.

Callas, you see, liked to take her post-ovation Fernet-Branca with a few fresh mint leaves to counter the astringency - and also the bitterness of loving that beast, Aristotle Onassis. Word of this innovation reached the Fratelli Branca and in 1965 they launched Brancamenta, hoping to cash in on the fame of La Divina - thereby launching the only celebrity collab that (in my opinion) improves upon the original.

Now, my first intention was to fold Brancamenta into the recent Fernet-Branca post. But fate intervened. Last week, I happened to interview the Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović about her forthcoming production, The Seven Deaths of Maria Callas at English National Opera. She will play Callas in bed, dreaming of Onassis, as seven sopranos sing seven deathly finales around her. I asked Abramović why she was so obsessed with Callas. “Let me have some sheep yoghurt,” she replied, taking a slurp from a pot of kefir, before conjuring the grey discipline of Communist Belgrade in 1960:

“So. I am 14 years old. I am in the kitchen with my grandmother. She is making breakfast. We have old Bakelite [бакелита] radio. I am sitting at the table and out came this voice out of the radio. It was such incredible intensity. The response! I stand up in the kitchen. I open the volume the maximum. And I listen. I close my eyes and cry uncontrollably. I just cry. This was the beginning.

I took the train home after that, listening to Callas singing Tosca, thinking about the time Abramović and her lover Ulay spent three months walking towards each other along the Great Wall of China to say goodbye to eachother and - akh! I arrived home in a particular mood. I scanned the spirits shelf for consolation and found myself reaching for a glass of Brancamenta, which I instinctively mixed with Italian vermouth over ice, my thoughts turned to my next Cabinet post. And it was only then, idling through my phone, that I learned of the Branca-Callas connection. This is of course precisely the sort of sensual synchronicity that Spirits was established to document. And so here we are.

Fernet-Branca, I didn’t quite get around to saying in my last post, is perhaps the quintessential “it tastes like cough mixture!” alcohol. Indeed, it was initially sold in Italy as medicine - reputed to cure worms (yes worms), cholera, fever and many other ailments, particularly female ailments. From 1891, the Fratelli Branca company was run by the operatically named Maria Scala, wife of Stefano Branca, and until 1913, its adverts exclusively pictured female drinkers. It was reputed to ease menstrual pain in addition to helping with nervous irritation, poor digestion, “spleen”, anxiety and the effects of ageing (according to this rather good article in SF Weekly).

As for Brancamenta, I feel sure it is a cure for heartache. Callas was absolutely on to something there. There is something about that alpine spearmint taste and of course, that lick of sweetness, that turns Fernet from something harshly medicinal into something darkly comforting. I don’t know if you find this, but sometimes, when I am in the doldrums, the only way out is through. I mean, there are times when you can jolly yourself into a happy mood. And there are times when you must bathe in some dark lament that washes out your deepest parts. “Goodness me, this is depressing!” someone will say as Gillian Welch’s Time the Revelator, or Smog’s Red Apples, or Maria Callas singing Un Bel di Vedremo from Madame Butterfly seeps out from under the bathroom door. “Are you alright in there?”

But you need to sleep in those black arms; you need to swim with those black-eyed angels; you need to dream of your lover calling you - "Piccina mogliettina / olezzo di verbena" - and then finally, you can swim out into the peppermint lagoon, refreshed.

Maria Callas knew this. Branca Menta knows it too, I feel. Although I wonder if part of the reason that Callas had reached for Fernet in the first place was its reputed vermicidal qualities. Later in our interview, Marina Abramovic added: “You know, to be skinny [for Onassis], she put a worm in her stomach and only ate raw meat. So she lost her voice. She sacrificed everything until the end of her life. It was so tragic. So tragic!”

Perhaps she was merely trying to kill the worm.

Anyway, all of this is to say, I think I prefer Branca Menta to plain old Fernet-Branca - even if this is a bit like preferring Aperol to Campari. And from a mixological standpoint it is a tiny bit easier to mix with, too. Fernet is what a gardener would call a bully. It crowds out the other liquid flowers. But Branca Menta, in spite of its additional complexity, is happier in company - more ingredients are less, in other words. Another fun thing about Branca Menta? It is relatively new, not so weighed down with cocktail history, like a country that has just overthrown its government. So its story is yet to be written.

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CABINET POSTS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

🌿Green Chartreuse
🍒 Maraschino
🍑 Apricot Brandy
🍫 Crème de Cacao
🌷Cynar
🏝️Falernum
🐂Sherry
🌵Mezcal
🫐Cassis
🧡Aperol
🍌Banana Liqueur
🐻Kümmel
🕊️Bénédictine
🦅Fernet-Branca

Is there an ingredient you’d like me to cover? Tell me about it.

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HOW TO MIX WITH BRANCA MENTA

Stirred

A good opening strategy is to use Branca Menta as a classier, more complex substitute for crème de menthe (which can be a little one-dimensional in its mintiness). In which case, I would direct you to the STINGER which is one of my favourite after-dinner cocktails, simply 50ml brandy and 10-20ml crème de menthe. The freshness of mint and the woody richness of barrel-aged spirits is a great combination and works in many worms. I mean forms. See: the Mint Julep, for example.

Similarly, most Fernet drinks work almost as well with Branca Menta if not better. My post-train-Callas-epiphany drink was approximately, 50ml Italian vermouth plus 25ml Branca Menta over ice, with a slice of orange. I’m not sure what to call it. Since the Campari and Vermouth is known as the Milano-Torino, we could reach for the name of a chic Italian ski resort in a nod to the alpine fresh qualities of Branca Menta. The CORTINA? Top it with fizzy water, if you like.

Oh and what do you get if you combine these two drinks? The MARIA CALLAS (above). I found the recipe in this informative round-up of opera-themed cocktails on this delightful site, Opera Feasts, by former singer David Anchel, which explores operatic gastronomy - or should that gastric opera? There is no source listed so I assume it is one of Anchel’s own creations but the proportions and overall conception suggest a man of discerning taste. 40ml brandy, 20ml Italian vermouth, 20ml Branca Menta, stirred, served down over ice. Mint garnish, I think? Maybe dial down the Branca Menta to 10ml or so? Still: utterly delicious. It tastes like a lost classic. Is that the ghost of a blackcurrant Fruit Pastille in the middle there?

Long

One of the most famous modern Branca Menta drinks is also the most peculiar. I mean of course the BRANCOLADA a crazy but delicious bitter-mint spin on the Piña Colada. You’ll need to make a coconut syrup for this one but that’s not so hard. Take one part coconut milk (I favour the Thai brand, Aroy-D) to two parts golden caster sugar. Place in a saucepan and stir over a gentle heat until fully dissolved; then allow to cool. It will keep in the fridge for a week or two. But if you really can’t be bothered with this just use 15ml coconut milk and add ~10ml sugar syrup to taste.

OK? Now shake: 30ml dark rum, 30ml Branca Menta, 50ml pineapple juice and 20ml coconut syrup. Fine strain into a tall glass filled with garnished with mint and orange. So good that when I made it this summer, I had finished it before I had the chance to photograph it.

It would be simpler of course to mix the stuff into a simple highball. Tonic is a fine accompaniment for Branca Menta, as are those more familiar Fernetmates, Coca-Cola, Root Beer and Dr Pepper. A more involved production is the WATERFRONT, developed by Damon Boelte at Prime Meats, NYC, who wanted to see how much Fernet he could get away with putting in a glass. Build this one in a tall glass filled with ice cubes: 30ml Fernet Branca, 15ml Branca Menta, squeeze of lime, topped with ooh, 60ml ginger beer. Mint garnish.

Shaken

Another classic crème de menthe drink that is kind of better with Branca Menta is the naughty-but-nice GRASSHOPPER. Traditionally, this is 25ml crème de menthe (green), 25ml crème de cacao (white) and 25ml double cream, shaken. It comes out pale green, hence the name. But I wouldn’t sweat the colour too much, if you have, say, white menthe and brown cacao. And anyway we’re talking about Branca Menta. You can either sub out the crème de menthe for Branca Menta in the above. Or try something a little richer: 30ml brandy, 15ml crème de cacao, 15ml Branca Menta and 30ml cream. Shake and strain into a dainty glass, dust with cocoa and garnish with a mint leaf. Alternatively, multiply the quantities by 30 million or so, strain into an Olympic-sized swimming pool and dive in.

*PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: The Momofuku Grasshopper Pie is one of the greatest things I have ever tasted and I don’t even have much of a sweet tooth. Recipe here.*

Another Branca Menta cocktail that you will see here and there is the QUICK LITTLE PICK-ME-UP invented by Audrey Saunders (of French Pearl fame). For this you must mix: 45ml bourbon (or rye), 15ml Branca Menta, 20ml lemon juice and 15ml golden sugar syrup. Shake hard with ice and fine-strain into an ice cold coupe. Mint garnish, I feel?

A variation on the above is the TEA TREE SOUR, so called as it resembles the famous mentholated zit remedy. Same same, really but with brandy, honey syrup and orange flower water - a surprising but excellent addition and a distant echo of the olezzo di verbena referenced by Madame Butterfly. Shake: 45ml brandy, 15ml Branca Menta, 20ml lemon juice, 15ml honey syrup and a drop of orange flower water. Shake and strain as above and garnish with mint.

Completing this little mentholated family is the TIGER BALM from Beta Cocktails. It’s pretty much the same thing but with dark rum and lime - though the specs (by our old friend Kirk Estopinal) are a little shorter on the Branca Menta. Shake: 50ml dark rum, 20ml lime juice, 15ml demerara sugar syrup and 5ml Branca Menta. Strain into a cold coupe an garnish, once more, with a mint leaf.

FINALLY, here’s a pleasant low-alcohol cocktail I encountered while I was giving my Otello at the Mariinsky. Sorry: I mean while I was looking at the internet. It’s called the BREAKFAST IN BED and it was invented by Natasha David at the now defunct Nitecap in NYC. Shake: 50ml Italian vermouth, 5ml Branca Menta, 20ml lemon juice, 10ml golden sugar syrup and a teaspoon of orange marmalade. Strain into a coupe and garnish with the New York Times.

And for more on preserves in cocktails, see you tomorrow.

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NEXT TIME: Amaretto 🌰