Fizzy drinks ( gaseosa ) are popular with people of all ages and are often drunk to accompany a meal, in this country where fewer and fewer people drink alcohol (even if wine consumption is relatively high) and drunkenness is regarded as a socially unacceptable, if minor, offence. All the big brand names are available, along with local brands such as Paso de los Toros whose fizzy grapefruit drinks ( pomelo ) are becoming increasingly popular. You will often be asked if you want mineral water with your meal - the carbonated versions often being referred to as soda - but you can ask instead for tap water ( agua de la llave ), which is safe to drink in most places (but best filtered in Buenos Aires and some other cities). Although little is grown in the country, good, if expensive, coffee is easy to come by in Argentina. In the cafés of most towns and cities - often trendy places where people gather to smoke, chat and watch the world go by - you will find very decent espressos, or delicious café con leche for breakfast (except in hotels); instant coffee is mercifully rare. The tea is usually made from teabags; grown in plantations in the northeast of the country, the tea is strong rather than subtle, and is served with either milk or lemon. Herbal teas or yuyos are all the rage, camomile ( manzanilla ) being the most common one. Mate is a whole world unto itself. Fruit juices ( jugos ) and milkshakes ( licuados ) can be excellent, especially in the areas where more exotic fruit are grown, but freshly squeezed orange juice is often sold at ridiculously high prices. Small cartons of apple juice, sold with a straw, are often good, but note the difference between juice and néctar : the latter are often very sweet juice-based drinks, some of which contain alarmingly little fruit.

Argentina's beer s more thirst-quenching than alcoholic and mostly comes as fairly bland lager. The Quilmes brewery dominates the market with ales such as Cristal, while Heineken also produces beer in Argentina. Mexican and Brazilian beers are commonplace but local brews are sometimes worth trying: in Mendoza, the Andes brand crops up all over the place while Salta's own brand is also good, and a kind of stout ( cerveza negra ) can sometimes be obtained in the Northwest. Usually when you ask for a beer, it comes in large bottles ( tres cuartos ), meant for sharing, or in cans ( latitas ); a small bottle is known as a porrón . If you want draught beer you must ask for a chopp . Wine is excellent and not too expensive, though in restaurants the predictable corkage hikes the price up considerably. Unfortunately, most restaurants across the country still have limited, unimaginative wine lists, which don't reflect Argentina's drift away from mass-produced table wines to vinos finos , far superior single or double varietals of a quality that easily matches the best European and other New World wines. It is also difficult to buy wine by the glass, and half-bottles are all too rare. Cheaper wine is commonly made into sangria r its white-wine equivalent, the clericó . Don't be surprised to see home-grown variants ( nacionales ) of whisky, gin, brandy, port, sherry and rum, none of which is that good. It's far better to stick to the locally distilled aguardientes or fire-waters, some of which (from Catamarca, for example) are deliciously grapey. There is no national alcoholic drink or cocktail, but a number of Italian vermouths and digestives are made in Argentina. Fernet Branca s the most popular, a demonic-looking brew the colour of molasses with a rather medicinal taste, invariably combined with cola, whose colour it matches, and consumed in huge quantities - it's generally regarded as the gaucho's favourite tipple. Indigenous peoples still make chicha rom fermented algarrobo fruit or piñones (monkey-puzzle nuts) but this is difficult to obtain.