Pisco Sour, Pisco Sweet.

We have fallen in love with Peru's national drink, the Pisco Sour.



Pisco is a grape brandy produced in Peru and Chile, and it is delicious by itself. The Pisco Sour mixes pisco with lime juice, sweetener, whipped egg white and a dash of bitters. Yum.

As part of our preparation for the trip, we put out messages looking for people with connections in the area. One connection we made was with Stephen Campbell, a CSL member who has lived much of his life in Peru.

We met Stephen for lunch in Lima at one of his favorite restaurants: El Amigo Pez.



We had the best, freshest fish, and the tastiest ceviche of our trip so far, and that's saying something. The fried flounder was served in a black butter sauce with lots of garlic, lime juice, and capers.The ceviche was made with a sauce called tiger's milk, full of spicy yellow chile.

We really felt a connection with Stephen. After a long lunch, he invited us to join him at his favorite pisco bar, the aptly named Pisco Bar, that evening. The Pisco Bar is owned by Stephen's good friend, Ricardo Carpio.



Ricardo is a pisco evangelist. He serves nothing but pisco in his well-stocked bar. He agreed to give us Pisco 101.



By giving us tastes of what seemed like 101 different piscos.

We all agreed that this was the winner.

He also gave us a dissertation on how pisco is made (a single distillation of a single or multiple grapes), what grapes are used, and how the altitude at which the grapes are grown and bottle aging affect the flavor. Interestingly, pisco is one of the few brandies that are never aged in containers of any organic material. No barrels, just bottle or steel.

Some fun pisco facts: Peru currently exports three times more Pisco than Chile. Peruvian Pisco won over 20 gold medals and was named the best liquor of the world in the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles 2011.

Peruvian pisco, like single-malt Scotches, is produced using only copper pot stills. Unlike the Chilean variety, Peruvian pisco is never diluted after it is distilled and enters the bottle directly at its distillation strength.


Many types of grapes are used to produce pisco, leading to a wide variation in flavor, aroma, and appearance of the liquor. Pisco must be aged for a minimum of three months in vessels of "glass, stainless steel or any other material which does not alter its physical, chemical or organic properties". Ricardo claims that five years would be a better aging period, but this is uneconomical for most producers. Hence his mission to develop an educated market for better quality pisco.

Ricardo and Stephen consider it heresy to mix pure pisco with anything else, just as it would be wrong to waste a good single-malt scotch to make a Rob Roy.

Then, probably because O and I are obvious heretics, Ricardo whipped up a couple of pisco-based cocktails for us: a Piscotini and a Pisco Manhattan. The Piscotini was a bit to sweet for my taste, though it had an interesting citrusy quality. The Manhattan, however was a perfect balance of sweet and bitter.

And that's the story of our spiritual journey in South America so far. Thanks to Stephen and Ricardo for being exceptional spirit guides.

P.