There are three drinks that I had the priveledge of being introduced to during my time in Argentina. These three were yerba mate, fernet, and the submarino. Let us start first with El Submarino.
El Submarino: This is an excellent drink, yummy, and you can order it whenever you please. It is served as warm milk in a fancy glass with a chocolate bar on the side. Can you guess what you do next? That’s right! You put the chocolate bar INSIDE the warm milk, stir it up, and walaa! You have got yourself some fancy shmancy hot chocolate. Can I say YUMMY?! Now the warm milk is not just warm milk, but has other secrets inside. You can find the recipe here: El Submarino
Yerba Mate:Â You will see people drinking this tea throughout Argentina during the day. Mate is pronounced “mah-tay”. It is a unique drink, filled with natural caffeine and other vitamins, and can be taken solo or in a group, passing the tea around. There are many healthy benefits that yerba mate provides you, as well as a healthy energy booster for your day. There are four elements that go into drinking yerba mate the traditional way.
- Mate gourd–Â The mate itself is not actually the tea. The mate is the gourd in which you drink out of. The gourd is made out of calabash or any variation of squash. It is a very specific process to cure the gourd to ensure the best taste, which you can read here. The mate gourd can be decorated with aluminum, silver, leather, carvings, or just a simple little gourd.
- Yerba-Â The yerba is the actual herb itself. Yerba actually comes from an evergreen tree of the holly family. It has a very specific taste, sort of grassy, but stocked with vitamins and caffeine. The leaves are dried and prepared in a certain way ensuring that all nutrients be available. Once your mate gourd has cured, you put a certain amount, depending on how strong you want the tea to be, of these loose leaves of yerba into the gourd.
- Hot water–The water you put into your mate will not be boiling, but very hot. If you are traveling on the subway with your mate, or going to work with your mate, you will bring your water in a thermos. It is common to see people with their gourd in one hand and thermos in the other on the subway or walking down the streets. You can find yerba mate heated water at gas stations or stores, heated to the perfect temperature. That is how common this drink is.
This is a man walking with his yerba mate in one hand and his thermos of heated water in the other
- Bombilla– After the yerba mate is cured and steeped to perfection (which I am not a mate expert, so again, you can read the process here), you put the straw in, called the bombilla. It is prounounced “bom-bee-sha”. This is a specific kind of straw that will usually come with your gourd. At the end of the bombilla, there are tiny holes so that you don’t drink any pieces of the yerba, just the liquid form of the mate. These bombillas can be decorated as well.
You can find mate gourds throughout Buenos Aires. They have frequent artisan markets, or ferias, there you will find an overwhelming selection of hand-made gourds and bombillas. I recommend NOT buying one at the airport when you leave đ And here is a photo of the final product! 
Yerba mate is commonly taken in a group of people. You take a sip or two and pass it on to the next person. YES, you share a bombilla! So, be wary of the people you choose to partake in this activity. And if you say “thank you” or “gracias”, they will think that you are done and would not like any more mate, so wait to the end to be polite!
Fernet: Fernet is an alcoholic drink. It is commonly ordered as “fernet con coca”, which is a mix of fernet with coca-cola. The reason for this being that fernet is super strong. It has an extremely unique flavor, I just call it a random mixture of herbs. Some of the ingredients include myrrh, rhubarb, chamomile, aloe, and saffron. And those are only some of them, there are rumors that there are many more involved. This drink is also a digestif. The most common fernet sold in Argentina is called Fernet Branca. 
I have heard several times, and from my own experience, that the first time you try fernet, you absolutely HATE it. But if you give it a second try, you appreciate it so much more and it is yummy and you don’t feel like you are drinking nasty alcohol. I recommend trying it and if you order fernet con coca, the locals will love you and will be surprised how non-gringo you are!
So, these three drinks are all national favorites. I highly suggest trying each one, separately of course đ
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