Washingtonian Adds Butter to Fernet, Creates Hot Buttered Fernet

Against everyone's better judgement a bartender at Swing Wine Bar in Olympia, Washington has created an unholy cold weather cocktail that sounds like something out of a Paula Deen fever dream. The concoction takes the a shot of Fernet Branca — the unofficial aperitif of San Francisco — and infuses it with spiced butter to create, you guessed it: hot buttered Fernet.

We're really not sure how to feel about this one. On the one hand, we like our Fernet. We like it with a ginger back. We like to sip it when we've got an itchy throat and probably shouldn't be out at a bar anyhow. And we really liked it when the dearly departed Koko Cocktails mixed it up in a Manhattan-type-thing. We also like butter. No manner of artificially produce corn oil-based dreck could ever replace butter. But just the thought of combining the two has us skeptical about what kind of horrible lactose hangovers we'd end up with. Still, if a (ahem) Mixologist came up with it, it must be wonderful, right?

The recipe, including how to make your very own spiced butter (apparently useful for all sorts of spicy/buttery things) is in the Chronicle's Sunday cocktail column.