Cassie Gallant, a bartender at Hall’s Chophouse on South Main Street, took home the prize for the best Fernet-Branca cocktail on July 12 during a competition hosted by Urban Wren with the help of Sabrina Lassale, Southeast Senior Portfolio Manager for Fratelli Branca.
Gallant, who said she relocated to Greenville from Portland, Maine, in July 2020 and dreams of opening her own restaurant some day, will go on to a regional Fernet-Branca competition this November in Savannah. Her winning recipe? A foie gras-washed, Fernet-Branca and apple brandy mix topped with an apricot-rhubarb foam. The recipe, dubbed “Ménage à Foie,” beat out 14 entries from 13 Greenville bars.
Tied for second place were Jeni Blyth of Luna Rosa and Stephen Phillips of Exile.
Gallant said Fernet-Branca, one of the world’s most well-known herbal liqueurs, offers a unique challenge. “Fernet-Branca’s very bitter,” she said. “It has almost a menthol finish.”
To alleviate the bitterness, she rendered foie gras and “fat-washed” the cocktail with it. The apricot-rhubarb foam gave the drink a fruity finish, she said, and a bit of bee pollen and freeze-dried strawberries served as a garnish.
It didn’t come easy — Gallant said the winning recipe took about a week of trial-and-error. But even she is surprised her recipe was the three-judge panel’s choice. “I thought I had a cool idea but everybody else had great cocktails as well — I was definitely surprised,” she said.
For winning, Gallant walked away with host of Fernet-Branca swag, including a cocktail shaker and bartender’s apron.
Overall, the competition drew a good crowd, Urban Wren bar manager Mike Grantham told the Journal.
“We expected about 60 people and about 150 showed up,” he said.
Travis Giarratana, Urban Wren’s general manager and beverage director, said the event was about more than crowning the best cocktail.
“With the cocktail scene growing in Greenville faster than a lot of other cities our size, it’s nice to get old friends and new friends together to continue pushing the ‘cocktail culture’ to the next level,” he said. “We are all close to the people we work with in our own establishments, but to break the barriers and meet new people with similar passions — in this case for Fernet-Branca — we can all get behind great hospitality and even better cocktails.”
