Alcademics

Category: pisco

  • A South American Sazerac

    Over at FineCooking.com, I posted the recipe for the Sazeru, a version of the Sazerac made with Pisco (from Peru, get it?). 

    Sazeru_M
    I actually made the drink as part of the final exam for the five-day B.A.R. course I took a couple of years ago. We had to create a cocktail with just four ingredients, including garnish. 

    As the only color in the drink comes from Peychaud's Bitters, it has a lovely pink hue. I decided to serve it up rather than on the rocks to show it off. 

    It's important to use an earthy, rather than floral, pisco in the drink. I think you'll like it. 

    Sazeru
    By Camper English

    2 fl. oz. Peruvian Pisco (Quebranta or Acholado)
    .5 fl. oz. Simple Syrup
    1 Barspoon Absinthe (Use a clear brand like Kubler)
    2 Dashes Peychaud's Bitters

    Stir all ingredients with ice until very cold and strain into a cocktail glass. 

     

     

  • Styles of Pisco: A Mystery Solved

    Depending on where you look online, you'll find that there are either three or four categories of Peruvian pisco.This is confusing if you want to write about it.

    The Problem

    Some sites say that there are four types: Puro, Aromatico, Mosto Verde, and Acholado.

    Others say three: Puro (which includes the four aromatic varietals of the Aromatico category above), Mosto Verde, and Acholado.

    As far as I know, the national pisco association of Peru has no official information in English. And the two very official-looking websites above have different answers.

    The Evidence

    But in the process of trying to figure out how many types of pisco there are I think I also figured out why there is confusion. Or rather, I asked enough people who figured it out for me. Particular thanks go to pisco historian/author Guillermo Toro-Lira who scanned in the old laws so we can compare it to the new ones.

    When the pisco norm (technical standard) was released in 1989, there were actually five approved categories of pisco. Toro-Lira scanned in the norm for us, which comes from the book: "Crónicas y Relaciones que se refieren al origen y virtudes del PISCO Bebida tradicional y patrimonio del Peró", Banco Latino, Lima Perú, 1990.

    Here are the most relevant pages (click to enlarge) especially the second one. As you can see, the five categories are puro, mosto verde, aromatico, aromatizado, and acholado.

    Piscolaw1989p1

    Piscolaw1989p2
    Piscolaw1989p3

    The aromatized category allowed for distilling or infusing other fruit into pisco.

    But when the norm was updated in 2006 [PDF of it is here], there aromatizado category is gone (maybe that was eliminated between 1989 and 2006; not sure) and Aromatico and Puro are merged into Puro:

    5. CLASIFICACIÓN
    5.1 Pisco puro: Es el Pisco obtenido exclusivamente de una sola variedad de uva pisquera.
    5.2 Pisco mosto verde: Es el Pisco obtenido de la destilación de mostos frescos de uvas pisqueras con fermentación interrumpida
    5.3 Pisco acholado: Es el Pisco obtenido de la mezcla de:
    – Uvas Pisqueras, aromáticas y/o no aromáticas.
    – Mostos de uvas pisqueras aromáticas y/o no aromáticas.
    – Mostos frescos completamente fermentados (vinos frescos) de uvas aromáticas y/o no aromáticas.
    – Piscos provenientes de uvas pisqueras aromáticas y/o no aromáticas.

    What looks to be  fair translation of that is here.

    The Answer

    So, the current law as of 2006 is that there are three categories of Peruvian pisco. Seeing how the law changed, we can understand all the confusion.

    https://www.elpiscoesdelperu.com/boletines/enero2008/NTP21100_Pisco.pdf

  • Latin, Packing, Pisco: A Few Articles I’ve Written Lately

    I've had several stories come out recently, so I thought I'd share them here. This blog is also my resume, after all. 

    Friday I wrote about my recent piece in the daily email Tasting Table San Francisco. This one is about Encanto Pisco, brought to us by a bartender, a sommelier, and a distiller. 

    Attention people attending Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans this July: My story about what to pack for the week (for media, speakers, bartenders, PR, and brand reps) in the June issue of Tasting Panel Magazine is now online. 

    Executivetravelmaycover  In the July issue of Executive Travel Magazine I have a story on the Latin libations that are hot and the ones that soon will be. 

    I have recently become a regular contributor to SilverKris, the in-flight magazine for Singapore Airlines. Unfortunately the magazine is not online. Recent stories have focused on new classic cocktails, the return of absinthe, and where to drink in Wellington, New Zealand. 

  • The Perudriver: A Cocktail with Pisco, Orange Juice, and Orange Liqueur

    Perudriver cocktail pisco orange juice and orange liqueur

     

    I was trying to create a cocktail for my seminar at Tales of the Cocktail using an orange liqueur, a sponsor of my session. After attempts at an Orange Negroni and Orange Absinthe Frappe that both failed, I came up with this way-too-simple and drinkable-as-heck cocktail, perfect for summer days and morning cocktailing. I really don't like the screwdriver as a cocktail, but I *love* this. 

    The Perudriver
    by Camper English

    3.5 ounces fresh orange juice
    1 ounce pisco
    1/2 ounce orange liqueur (cognac-based)

    Add all ingredients to an ice-filled glass and stir. 

    Perudriver cocktail pisco orange juice and orange liqueur
     

  • New History on the Pisco Sour

    Piscoad  Guillermo Toro-Lira is probably the US's leading pisco historian, devoting years' worth of study to drinks such as the Pisco Punch and Pisco Sour. The latter drink was created by Victor Morris, an American who moved to Peru with the mining trade and opened a bar. Toro-Lira got hold of the register of Morris' bar, and this revealed many truths about the history of the Pisco Sour.

    For background, the Pisco Sour is a simple sour, made with pisco, lemon or lime, sugar, and often an egg white and bitters. It is no revelation, based on the traditional sour recipe, but in this case we have a good idea of its origin. Pisco is a grape brandy from Peru and traditionally distilled in pot stills and unaged, as opposed to Chilean pisco that is a latecomer, usually distilled in column stills and sometimes briefly aged.

    To read Toro-Lira's recent discoveries and theories based on Morris' bar register, check out the article here.

  • Camper’s Clampers Bonus: Plaque Pics

    As a bonus supplement to my story in the SF Chronicle on E Clampus Vitus, here are pictures I took of the historic plaques located around SF. I didn't get a picture of the Anchor Brewing or Molloy's Tavern in Colma, but here are the other four.

    SF Brewing Cos
    Old Ship Saloon PlaqueS
    Hotaling BuildingS
    PiscopunchS

    Bonus: Bummer and Lazarus plaque.

    Bummer and lazarusS

  • Camper Meets the Clampers

    Though we like to think the interest in classic cocktails is a recent one, the members of E Clampus Vitus have been celebrating drink history since the year 5937.

    That date – 1932 in our years – corresponds with the rebirth of an organization commonly called ECV, or the Clampers, whose motto, Credo Quia Absurdum, translates (though not exactly) into "I believe because it is absurd."

    Here is the rest of this story I wrote in today's San Francisco Chronicle about E Camplus Vitus, a drinking historical society or a historical drinking society- they can't decide which.

    Clampers1

  • A Vintage Pisco Punch Story

    I was stumbling through the internet the other day and came acrross this vintage story on Pisco Punch, written by Lucius Beebe and published in Gourmet Magazine in 1957.

    Some choice quotes:

    Once in the hands of Duncan Nicol it was translated, as by consecration
    in the name of a divinity more benevolent than all others, into Pisco
    punch, the wonder and glory of San Francisco's heady youth, the balm
    and solace of fevered generations, a drink so endearing and inspired
    that although its prototype has vanished, its legend lingers on, one
    with the Grail, the unicorn, and the music of the spheres…

    He meant it, too, about the two drinks to a customer. If a favored
    patron like Fire Chief Scannell or James Flood, the Nevada bonanza king
    who was himself once a saloonkeeper of note (both of them were known
    tosspots), wanted more, he could walk around the block, thus qualifying
    as a new customer. When millionaire John Mackay, perhaps the richest
    man in America at the time, wanted a third, he like everyone else raked
    his silk hat off the stag-horn rack, walked demurely around the block,
    and returned to get if. Nobody took liberties with Nicol…

    Pisco came into the fullest flowering of its celebrity, became a generic term, and entered the local language. A writer in the California Alta
    elegantly referred to a drunken character as “more than piscoed.” Neill
    C. Wilson, the western historian, coined the simile “as comfortable as
    a Pisco jag.”

    If you're a pisco nerd like me, it's a must read.

    Duncannicol