I never met a drink I truly hated

I mean, I've met drinks I don't like before. I'm not a huge fan of soda in general, except of course Diet Coke (and Diet Vanilla Coke, thanks to S.E.A.). I'll also pass on whiskey pretty quickly. And as NTF knows damn well I really am not a fan of Jagermeister. I know he knows this, even though he blatantly ignores me whenever I remind him as he starts lining shots up at the bar. He ignores me because he also knows full well that for all my complaining, I'll probably drink the drink in the end. Twist my rubber arm.

So with my high tolerance for bad-tasting drinks in mind, I was unafraid the other day to take the risk and order a completely unknown drink that had been recommended long ago by a friend when she heard I was going to Argentina. At least, she used to be a friend. After this debacle she has been officially demoted to the status of co-worker.

We were sitting in Van Koning, a Dutch bar in Las Canitas, when I saw it on the menu. Fernet y coca. Well, coca I can handle, that's just Coke. Fernet was the unknown. Becca was all over it like a fat kid on a smartie, so we both ordered one (Island Girl, the smart chicky, stuck with her Cosmopolitan).

Our grinning waiter trotted off and we watched as the bartender started mixing the drinks. We first started wondering what we'd gotten ourselves into when she practically had to use a fork to scoop the thick, black sludge out of what we presumed was the Fernet bottle. Then back came our jolly little waiter, and set the drinks down on the table with a flourish.

It just looks like a Black and coke, I persuaded myself (the one skill I managed to carry away from Queen's as an English major is being able to persuade myself of anything). Becca, the sneaky little site, generously waited for me to drink first.

When it hit the tip of my tongue my first thought was root beer, which was disappointing (root beer is also on the list of drinks I don't like, so much so that I never drink it, which may be why Rebecca was so confused when I later on compared that first taste to root beer - according to her, the first taste tastes nothing like root beer).

But then the second wave of taste hit. Out of nowhere the Fernet karate-kicked my taste buds and left them for dead in a crying heap before burning a fiery path down my throat into my stomach. I could practically feel my stomach lining dissolving.

"This is fantastic!" I told Rebecca, trying desperately not to puke. "Drink up!" Off to the side, our waiter was still grinning. We had to take a picture of Becca's face when she drank, I've never seen her look quite so horrified before.

"What the fuck is this shit?" we asked the waiter politely. He brought over a bottle for us to examine. The sludge is originally from Italy, which turned my entire world upside down (how could something so foul-tasting come from Italy, of all places?), and is, believe it or not, a distillation of herbs.

"A distillation of herbs??" we said. "A distillation of herbs," the waiter repeated. What herbs?

I mean, I'm a big fan of herbs. I like herbal tea, I like herbal essential oils, I like herb spices. My good friend Walter and I have had many a cheerful discussion on the healing qualities of herbs, and the final conclusion has always been in favour.

But what those Italians must have done to whatever unnamed herbs they used in that witchy concoction, I don't even want to know about.

For some reason, perhaps an insane desire to just prove we could, we choked down the rest of the poison, trying to breathe through our mouths as we did so. Yeah we finished them. Even sucked up the last few drops through the straw. No, it sure as shit didn't grow on us. I was hopeful that it would by the fourth sip, but then I took the fifth, and realised I was unequivocally wrong.

So for all those crazy fools (not you, Marcus, please) out there who are searching for a drink to hate, this is the one. Fernet y coca. Hell, just drink straight Fernet. Oh God, straight Fernet. What would it have tasted like without the Coke?? Oh wow. I don't even want to think about it. I'm getting heart palpitations at the mere thought. I have to tell Becca to imagine straight Fernet.

Oh, EW.