Pisco Sour: Peru's Official Drink
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Peru's official drink is the pisco sour. By official, I mean I never found a restaurant that didn't serve them, and even the cocktail party at the American ambassador's house served three drinks: red wine, white wine and pisco sours.
(Side note: While there for a jazz shindig, I was tempted to steal the wine glass etched with the seal of the embassy, but then I remembered all the guys with guns guarding the place -- and the likelihood of a taxi collision on the ride home. So I stole a napkin, but later used it at a restaurant that didn't have bathroom tissue. I feel sure I have now broken some provision of the Patriot Act...)
Pisco comes in a glass the size of a water tumbler. It usually contains two ice cubes, a dollop of beaten egg whites, a little lemon juice, and enough pisco to cauterize a wound.
At 50-60 proof, pisco has a kick to it. But it's not smokey or bitter like American mash, and after the very first swallow, it numbs the tongue and sends scouts to the part of your brain responsible for making sense. There, they set up a perimeter and cut the phone wires to the rest of your brain.
By the time reinforcements arrive in the form of a second and third sip, your ability to stop drinking pisco has already been totally neutralized, and the rest of the pisco army goes directly into the areas of your brain responsible for making you stay out late, crave greasy food, and negotiate rates poorly with taxi drivers. On the plus side, you become able to speak Spanish fluently, or so it seemed to me.
It doesn't make you sleepy, nor does it apparently make you invisible, much to my disappointment and later chagrin.
I planned to bring a bottle back, at least after my first two nights (night one: one drink of pisco, night two: two drinks), but then I had a whole three drinks in one night, and even though the pictures on my digital camera prove that I had a very good time, I had a physical aversion to the pisco shelf at the duty free and so must be content with my memories.
Comments
I am a pisco sour convert (well, not converted from anything, just to it as a drink of choice).
It turns out that I love anything with lime as a primary ingredient - even if it has raw eggs in it.
Posted by cybele at 05:28 PM on May 21, 2004It's a shame that it's such a hard drink to find anywhere except Peru.
Posted by Travis Smith at 05:33 PM on May 21, 2004Oh, my crazy, filthy, fun, beautiful, overcrowded, noisy, warm and always loving hometown!, anyway for those who are hooked up with pisco there are some local websites where you can order it, I won't mention them, but just make a search for the most popular web portals from Peru and you will find the way to get it, remember to get the peruvian limes too! that's part of the secret of a true pisco sour.
Posted by luis alberto at 12:20 AM on April 08, 2005Comments are closed on this archive page. You may add a comment to the new page.
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Travis Gone Wild!
Hope you didn't join the Shining Path whilst in Peru. That would most certainly violate the Patriot Act.
(I wonder if simply writing 'Shining Path' on the web will attact the attention of some FBI snoops. Hmmm....I'm deleting my email addy.)
Sorry I missed your farewell party...hopefully we can grab that lunch when you get back!
JA
Posted by joe at 12:37 AM on May 02, 2004