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Pisco Sour

Pisco Sour

Name: Pisco Sour
Prep time: 0
Cook time: 0
Total time: 0
Yield: 1
Cuisine: Cocktails
Ingredients: 60 ml Pisco; 30 ml fresh lemon juice; 20 ml simple syrup; 1 raw egg white

By: Aarushi Agrawal

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A big point of debate with the Pisco Sour is the choice of pisco. While Peruvians prefer a pisco made from Querbranta grape or acholado, others prefer a pisco made of Italian grape, like the mosto verde Italia pisco. The drink is topped with three drops of bitters, dropped symmetrically onto the foaming head. Not only is it striking to look at, it also masks the smell of the egg white. There are many options like the Angostura Aromatic Bitters, the Peruvian Amargo Chuncho made from Amazonian barks and herbs, and more. Some bartenders also like to add a sprinkling of cinnamon on top, although that’s not conventional.

pisco sour recipe at home

The Pisco Sour is the national drink of Peru and Chile and both lay claim to its origins. In the 1980s, a Chilean newspaper called El Comercio de Iquique reported that the drink was created by Elliot Stubb in 1872. Stubb was an English steward on a ship named Sunshine, who opened a bar in Iquique, a port of Peru. but closer inspection reveals that Stubb was referring to the Whiskey Sour, a forerunner of the Pisco Sour.

Then, in 2009, Luis Guillermo Toro-Lira Stahl and Michael Morris published a paper that was “Clarifying the legends in the history of pisco sour”. It traced the origin of the cocktail to Victor Vaughen Morris Jones, the grandfather of one of the two authors. Morris was from Utah but had immigrated to Peru in 1903, working as a cashier for Cerro de Pasco Railroad. Family legend says that while working here, during the inauguration of the line from Oroyo, he created the Pisco Sour. he’d run out of whiskey for his Whiskey Sours, which he was to serve to the 5000 guests in attendance, and came up with this alternative instead.

pisco sour cocktail

In 1916, he opened the Morris’ Bar. Here, he was known by the nickname Gringo. The Pisco Sours flourished and the bar did well. The bar’s visitor book titled Morris’ Bar Register, still with the family today, records over 2200 signatures. Among them are former president of Chile and ambassador to Peru Emiliano Figueroa, millionaire Roger Straus and Company of Faucett Aviation founder Elmer Faucett.

However, there was much competition for the wealthy foreign guests and Morris’ bartenders soon moved to nearby bars like the one at Hotel Bolivar, taking the recipe with them. His health also declined and in 1929, he declared voluntary bankruptcy. He died a few months later and his wife emigrated to San Francisco with their three children.

The drink continued living on with this accepted as its origin story. Then, in 2012, the Peruvian writer Raúl Rivera Escobar uploaded a pamphlet on the internet, published in Lima in 1903, written by SE LEdesma. On page 32 of the document, titled Nuevo Manual de Cocina a la Criolla (New Manual of Creole Cooking), is a recipe with the simple heading ‘Cocktail’. It calls for an "egg white, a cup of pisco, a teaspoon of sugar and a few drops of lime juice to taste". Now, this is the earliest known recipe of the Pisco Sour.