Tiki Central / Tiki Drinks and Food / Pisco Capel / Pisco Sour
Post #44030 by tikibars on Tue, Jul 22, 2003 2:05 PM
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Tue, Jul 22, 2003 2:05 PM
Aloha TC 'ohana The editor of a local Chicago rockabilly 'zine asked me to write something about Pisco for her, so I did. Given the recent resurgence in debate on TC over ideal mai tai and zombie recipes, I thought I'd not only share my Pisco article with interested parties, but perhaps expand the debate to include Pisco recipes. Granted, Pisco is not a traditional Tiki drink, being South American in origin, but given that it is the drink of choice among the residents of Easter Island, I think it should be granted a position in any good Tiki Bar. JT A man on a quest: by James Teitelbaum After sampling the latest version of my constantly evolving Pisco Sour recipe at Anne and Stephan Gelau's great barbecue on July 12, Re-Vue editor Susan Funk asked about the genesis of that particular potation. After my slurred oration on the legend of Pisco, she suggested that I write about it for Re-Vue. This story doesn�t have Jack Daniels to do with the Chicago RAB community, but hey, I do what the lady who runs the magazine tells me to do, you know? So, we proudly present to you the tale of the Pisco Sour. It started, of all places, on the single most remote inhabited spot on the planet, the mystical island of Rapa Nui (also known as Easter Island), in May of 2000. No, actually it started at Sam's Wine in Chicago in 1997. While wondow shipping at the liquor store, I spied a big black bottle that looked like a Moai (or a Rapa Nui ancestor carving) full of some mysterious liqueur called Pisco Capel. I didn't care what the stuff was, I just wanted the ultra cool bottle for display in my Tiki room at home. Of course, it would be folly to let that 80 proof booze go to waste, so I started trying to drink it. I say 'trying' because the spirits in that bottle were angry ones. The stuff in that bottle was vile. Pisco originated in Peru, but it is now as ubiquitous in Chile as Old Style signs are in Bucktown. It is essentially a brandy made of white muscat grapes. Attempts were made to drink it as a shot, and then with soda, and then with juice... no luck. Now we can forward to Easter Island in May of 2000. There are only 1900 people on the island, and they all live in a little village called Hanga Roa, which is on one corner of the roughly triangular island, 3500 miles west of the coast of Chile. Since Chile governs Rapa Nui, the islanders are at the mercy of the mainland. They get a supply ship a couple of times per year. If you find yourself in one of Hanga Roa's two bars (each of which seats about 12 people) you drink whatever it is that happened to come over on the last boat. In most cases it is Pisco, since this particular rocket fuel is made in Chile. So, the islanders have become pretty adept at finding ways to make it drinkable. The most common recipe is what they call a Pisco Sour. Both of Hanga Roa's little pubs make it differently; I took notes about both variations after coming back from long days of hiking through the ruins of a lost civilization, looking at the monumental Moai figures, and getting bit by a black widow spider (really!). My next stop that spring was in Santiago, Chile. Most of the bars there make Pisco Sours, as well as a bunch of other recipes using this ubiquitous local aqua vitae. Other companies besides Capel make Pisco. Inca Pisco comes in a bottle that looks - you guessed it - like an Incan Sun God, in direct competition with Capel's superior souvenir Moai decanter. Inca Pisco tastes no better than Pisco Capel, by the way. The Chileans like to mix their Pisco with unlikely ingredients such as raw egg. I was willing to give this firewater another shot, but there's no way I was putting eggs into my hootch. I don't like to mix both of my favorite breakfasts in one glass, see? But here's the rub (finally): blended with the proper ingredients (not eggs), this Pisco stuff is actually really good. You just need to find the right things to compliment it. Pisco is $23 a bottle at Sam's, but only $8 at the duty free shops (those prices are for the Moai bottle; it also comes in a clear glass vessel for less dough). Now that the Chileans and Easter Islanders had enlightened me in the way to make this rotgut taste good, I could justify stocking up on a bunch of the slick bottles - and drink the contents enjoyably. Back home, I experimented with amalgamations of all of the various Pisocombinations collected on Rapa Nui and in Chile, and I added some touches of my own. Two years later, when it came time to add a dozen classic Tropical Drink recipes to my book, Tiki Road Trip (Santa Monica Press, 2003), I decided in a moment of whimsy and perhaps ego to add my customized libationary souvenir of the South Pacific to the listing of classic and no-longer secret 1940s and 1950s blends by such legends as Trader Vic, Don the Beachcomber, and Paul Fong. Since then, the recipe has been refined even further, with the reinstatment of some ingredients left out of the previous revision, and he deletion of the orange juice (and thanks to Nels from http://www.tikizone.com, the only other guy I know who's actually been to Rapa Nui, for a reminder about the brown sugar!). Believe it or not, adding too much fruit juice to Tropical Drinks is cheating: the best ones achieve a refreshing taste without resorting to dumping a lot of pineapple juice into the mix. So, here (in print for the first time), is the latest version of a constantly evolving drink, the recipe for which has been tracked and tweaked from Chicago to Easter Island to Chile to Berwyn and back. Aku Hall Sour (Pisco Sour) v.4.0 For two: Mix ingredients and two large handfuls of ice in blender until ice is completely crushed. [ Edited by: tikibars 2006-12-01 00:37 ] |