From left, a pisco cocktail with golden berry at Huaringas Bar, a Chilcano at Maras in the Westin hotel and El Verdecito, front, at Cala.
My husband came home from a business trip to Brazil a few years ago raving about the Caipirinha rina – a Brazilian cocktail that’s sort of like a very potent limeade (He brought home sugar can rum so he could mix it with sugar and lime to make us caipirinhas at a neightborhood gathering in Des Moines) Now comes word from the NYTimes that we’ll have to try the Pisco – the Peruvian national cocktail when we’re in Lima visiting our son next fall when he is studying there.
We’re game! (Here’s the NYT story that ran in today’s travel section.)
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Recipe: Pisco Ginger (a k a Chilcano) (April 15, 2012)
Pisco has been made in the dry coastal valleys of southern Peru since at least the early 17th century, and has become inextricably linked to the country’s identity. The spirit must be served at Peruvian diplomatic functions around the world. The national drink, the pisco sour, is an indigenous marriage of pisco, the distinctive Peruvian lime, egg white and bitters derived from the bark of a Peruvian tree. (It even has its own national day of celebration.)
As Peru’s fortunes have gone, so have those of pisco, reaching a golden age during the flush mineral boom of the late 19th century, when an influx of Italians introduced refined winemaking techniques. In Lima’s bars, pisco flowed copiously back then, though it was Chile that first established the spirit as a denomination of origin in 1931, staking a marketing claim. (Chilean pisco is an altogether different product, with different ingredients and processes that yield a different flavor.) Bleak times followed: amid Socialist land reforms and often violent political conflicts that plagued Peru for most of the last century, the quality and reputation of pisco sank. Limeños defected to foreign whiskey and vodka — anything but pisco, then considered the tipple of old-timers and drunks.
In the last few years, though, as Peru’s circumstances have reversed, dedicated pisqueros are now producing excellent piscos, and the mixology renaissance that has touched many of the world’s cities has also landed in Lima’s bars. Here are four spots in the capital city that, in their own distinctive way, reflect how Peruvians have rediscovered their native spirit.
Cala
On a recent late Friday afternoon, this swank beachfront spot felt like Malibu: from a back patio suspended over the sand, well-tanned patrons sipped cocktails in view of surfers. The cocktails in hand are the creations of Enrique Vidarte, widely considered the city’s most inventive pisco mixologist. His well-balanced concoctions are a perfect showcase for the different pisco varietals: El Verdecito, a delicious green slurried cocktail served in a margarita glass, blends pisco Italia, with a bright citrus and sweet floral nose, together with mint leaves, sugar and Peruvian lime juice (22 nuevos soles, or $8 at 2.73 nuevos soles to the dollar).
The 42 cocktails on Mr. Vidarte’s menu are mostly his own, but there are a few classics, like the Capitán. A dry mix of pisco and red vermouth (the drink’s white and red stripes conjure a Peruvian naval captain’s insignia) and amaretto, the drink is a throwback to the spirited scene of the 1920s at Lima’s Gran Hotel Bolivar, where it was popularized — some believe in response to the drought of American whiskey during Prohibition.
Cala, Avenida Circuito Vial Costa Verde; Playa Barranquito; Espigón B2; Barranco; (51-1) 252-9187; calarestaurante.com.
Bar Inglés, Country Club Lima Hotel
No Peruvian cocktail is more classic than the pisco sour. Invented, paradoxically, by an expat Mormon from Utah named Victor Morris, the recipe was canonized in the 1930s at the Hotel Maury in Lima. These days, the Maury serves a warm, overly sweet version to tourists who don’t know it is not the real thing.
For that, I headed to Bar Inglés, a wood-paneled retreat inside the grand Country Club Lima Hotel, where the drink (26 nuevos soles) is mixed by Roberto Meléndez, and is a direct transmission of the original. (Mr. Meléndez’s father worked at Hotel Maury in the 1940s.)
Mr. Meléndez reached for Pisco Qollqe, one of the new-wave artisanal brands, and measured out a precise ratio: four parts pisco to one part lime, one part simple syrup and an egg white. Shaken and poured into a chilled wine glass, it ended up with a lovely topping of foam. He also added a few drops of bitters for fragrance.
“This,” he said with confidence, “is the same pisco sour that was served at the Hotel Maury.”
Bar Inglés, Los Eucaliptos 590; San Isidro; (51-1) 611-9000; hotelcountry.com.
Mayta
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