I’m going to try a few different pisco cocktails over the next few entries here, just to maintain a little bit of a pisco theme. Some probably won’t be so great. However, there is one excellent one coming up shortly, and hopefully there will be a couple of other good ones besides that.

This one is something I found while looking for something else. It is called a ‘Pisco Bell-Ringer’ and comes from David Wondrich at Esquire.

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The theme for this month’s Mixology Monday is Repeal Day, and Pre-prohibition drinks are thus in order. Pisco is flavor of the month at my place since I managed to pick up three different brands of the stuff. That makes the Pisco Punch the obvious choice for this month’s drink.

I mentioned Pisco Punch the last time I wrote here. The problem with Pisco Punch, and it is quite a problem, is that the original recipe seems to have been lost. Certain things about the drink are known with certainty though. (more…)

I have always had a soft spot for pisco and its trendier Italian cousin grappa. Both are rustic, unaged grape brandies. Pisco originated as a way for Peruvian grape growers to use poorer quality grapes considered unsuitable for wine production which otherwise would have been discarded. From these humble beginnings pisco gradually grew in popularity and grapes started to be planted specifically for its production. In contrast, Italian grappa is distilled from the skins, stalks, pips and other material remaining after wine making. In most countries this material would be discarded or used as animal feed, but in Italy it is collected and distilled to produce grappa. (more…)