Happy Hour History: Picso Sour
Photo by Jim Sabataso
Before we dive into the birth of the pisco sour, it’s helpful to have a little background on the cocktail’s base spirit, pisco. Pisco is a type of brandy first produced in Peru and Chile by Spanish winemakers in the 16th century. Realizing that importing orujo, a kind of pomace brandy, was becoming too much of a hassle, they went for the DIY approach, and began distilling wine to get a high-proof spirit.
The DIY approach (visual approximation).
The story of the pisco sour begins in the early 20th century. The popular telling puts the cocktail’s origins in Lima, Peru, in the early 1920s where American bartender Victor Morris first had the idea to give pisco the classic sour treatment at his eponymous bar. The cocktail was a hit with guests, leading Morris to go big with promoting his invention via advertisements in local newspapers and magazines.
But despite all that aggressive marketing, the pisco sour may not have been a Morris original. The Peruvian food and drink blog Pisco Trail cites evidence of the cocktail’s existence in 1903 — 17 years before Morris first served up his sour. An excerpt (translated from Spanish) from a cookbook Nuevo Manual de Cocina a la Criolla features a recipe that is strikingly similar to a pisco sour:
“An egg white, a glass of Pisco, a teaspoon of fine sugar, and a few drops of lime as desired, this will open your appetite.