Good libations


Recently I've noticed a frothy little curiosity from the golden age of cocktails popping up in trendier O.C. bars. It's called a pisco sour. Think of it as the other South American cocktail. Move over, caipirinha, it's time to share the stage.

Its primary ingredient is pisco, a yellowish grape brandy that Spanish settlers started making in the New World in the 1600s. An egg white makes it frothy, and a touch of bitters deepens the sweet-and-sour quality of the lemon-based mixer.

The pisco sour's origin is not without controversy and multiple claimants.

According to some sources, it first appeared in Peru in the 1920s. It was concocted by Victor Vaughn Morris, an expatriate American bartender, who went to Peru in 1903 to work in Cerro de Pasco.

Morris prospered, and sometime during World War I he opened his own place in Lima; he called it Morris' Bar. It was a classy establishment that attracted the local swells and well-heeled tourists, especially Americans and Brits.

Morris employed a man named Mario Bruiget as his main bartender. He reportedly tweaked the pisco sour into its present form in the late 1920s. Bruiget's contribution was to add Angostura bitters and egg whites (it's hard to imagine a pisco sour without those ingredients).

If you're Chilean, you're probably doing a pisco sour spit take right now. As any cocktail-loving citizen of that coastal country knows, the pisco sour is their baby. (Don't even get them started on why their domestic pisco is better than Peru's.)

Respected Chilean historian Oreste Plath claimed the drink was created by bartender Elliot Stubb, who was originally a steward on a British merchant ship, the Sunshine. His recipe included Key lime juice, syrup and ice, and it first appeared in Iquique, a Chilean port town, around 1872.

(Some sources claim Stubb also invented the whiskey sour, which shares certain qualities with the pisco sour.)

One thing's certain: the pisco sour was used as a marketing gimmick to sell South American charm and exoticism. Chilean and Peruvian magazine ads mention it as early as 1921.

It's still a marketing draw and a source of national pride. In Peru, the first Saturday of February is National Pisco Sour Day. That's right: a federal holiday for a gosh-darned cocktail. Peru is suddenly on my bucket list.

Though more O.C. bars are making pisco sours these days, there's a sense of dutiful obligation to the effort. They're not as flashy as a salt-rimmed margarita or a three-olive martini, and most bartenders seem uninspired by them.

Most, but not all. Haven Gastropub in Old Towne Orange makes one that's head and shoulders above the rest.

Haven's pisco sour is made with Oro Pisco from Peru, house-made sweet and sour, whipped egg white and a dash of Angostura bitters. That's the classic recipe, and it seems simple and foolproof, doesn't it? But you'd be surprised how many bartenders screw it up.

Happily, the people behind the counter know what they're doing at Haven.

They use small cocktail glasses, appropriate for a cocktail from the pre-World War II era, and the bitters is drawn in a little triangle on the foam. Sweet, sour, bitter, thirst-quenching – you won't find a better summer drink.

“Jamie Boudreau (the mixologist at 320 Main in Seal Beach) and I often go to New York and check out some of our favorite bars there,” said Wil Dee, Haven's beverage director. “We really like this one. I train my bartenders carefully, so they get the dilutions and proportions just right.”

Customers love it, Dee said. “It's my favorite, too.”

User Agreement

Comments are encouraged, but you must follow our User Agreement


Programs & Promotions
Business Directory
Ads by Google