Pisco sour

The Plaza de toros de Acho (Lima), the oldest bullring in the Americas, where the predecessor to the pisco sour was sold

The first grapevines were brought to Peru shortly after its conquest by Spain in the 16th century. Spanish chroniclers from the time note the first winemaking in South America took place in the hacienda Marcahuasi of Cuzco.[9] The largest and most prominent vineyards of the 16th and 17th century Americas were established in the Ica valley of south-central Peru.[10][11] In the 1540s, Bartolomé de Terrazas and Francisco de Carabantes planted vineyards in Peru.[12] Carabantes also established vineyards in Ica, where Spaniards from Andalucia and Extremadura introduced grapevines into Chile.[12][13]

Already in the 16th century, Spanish settlers in Chile and Peru began producing aguardiente[13][14] distilled from fermented grapes.[15] Since at least 1764, Peruvian aguardiente was called "pisco" after its port of shipping;[10][11] the usage of the name "pisco" for aguardiente then spread to Chile.[upper-alpha 3] The right to produce and market pisco, still made in Peru and Chile, is the subject of ongoing disputes between the two countries.[16]

According to historian Luciano Revoredo, the preparation of pisco with lime dates as far back as the 18th century. He bases his claim on a source found in the Mercurio Peruano which details the prohibition of aguardiente in Lima's Plaza de toros de Acho, the oldest bullring in the Americas. At this time, the drink was named Punche (Punch), and was sold by slaves. Revoredo further argues this drink served as the predecessor of the Californian pisco punch, invented by Duncan Nicol in the Bank Exchange Bar of San Francisco, California.[17] According to a 1921 news clip from the West Coast Leader, an English-language newspaper from Peru, a saloon in San Francisco's Barbary Coast red-light district was known for its Pisco sours during "the old pre-Volstead days".[18] Culinary expert Duggan McDonnell considers that this attributes the popularity (not origin) of a pisco cocktail in San Francisco dating as far back as before the 1906 earthquake that destroyed the Barbary Coast.[18] A recipe for a pisco-based punch, including egg whites, was found by researcher Nico Vera in the 1903 Peruvian cookbook Manual de Cocina a la Criolla; consequently, McDonnell considers that "[i]t is entirely possible that the 'Cocktail' that came to be the pisco sour ... had been prepared for a reasonable time in Lima before being included in a cookbook."[19]

Victor Morris, inventor of the pisco sour

The pisco sour originated in Lima, Peru.[1] It was created by bartender Victor Vaughen Morris, an American from a respected Mormon family of Welsh ancestry, who moved to Peru in 1904 to work in a railway company in Cerro de Pasco.[20][21] Americans emigrated to the bustling Andean mining hub of Cerro de Pasco, then the second-largest city in Peru, for work in the business ventures established by the tycoon Alfred W. McCune.[21] Morris, who worked as a floral shop manager in Salt Lake City, joined McCune's project to construct what was then the highest-altitude railway in the world and ease the city's export of its precious metals.[21] During celebrations for the railway's completion in July 1904, Morris, tasked with overseeing the festivities, recalled first mixing pisco in a cocktail beverage after the nearly 5,000 American and Peruvian attendees (including local celebrities and dignitaries) consumed all of the available whiskey.[21]

Morris relocated to the Peruvian capital, Lima, with his Peruvian wife and three children in 1915. A year later, he opened a saloon—Morris' Bar—which became popular with both the Peruvian upper class and English-speaking foreigners.[20][21][22] Morris, who often experimented with new drinks, developed the pisco sour as a variant of the whiskey sour.[23] Chilean historian Gonzalo Vial Correa also attributes the pisco sour's invention to Gringo Morris from the Peruvian Morris Bar, but with the minor difference of naming him William Morris.[24]

Some discrepancy exists on the exact date when Morris created the popular cocktail. Mixologist Dale DeGroff asserts the drink was invented in 1915,[25] but other sources argue this happened in the 1920s.[26] The Chilean web newspaper El Mercurio Online specifically contends historians attribute the year of the drink's invention as 1922, adding that "one night Morris surprised his friends with a new drink he called pisco sour, a formula which mixes the Peruvian pisco with the American sour" (in Spanish: "Una noche Morris sorprendió a sus amigos con una nueva bebida a la que llamó pisco sour, una fórmula que funde lo peruano del pisco con el 'sour' estadounidense.").[27]

Advertisement for Morris' Bar and Register[upper-alpha 4]

The pisco sour's initial recipe was that of a simple cocktail.[28] According to Peruvian researcher Guillermo Toro-Lira, "it is assumed that it was a crude mix of pisco with lime juice and sugar, as was the whiskey sour of those days."[29] As the cocktail's recipe continued to evolve, the bar's registry shows that customers commented on the continuously improving taste of the drink.[29] The modern Peruvian version of the recipe was developed by Mario Bruiget, a Peruvian from Chincha Alta who worked under the apprenticeship of Morris starting on July 16, 1924. Bruiget's recipe added the Angostura bitters and egg whites to the mix.[20] Journalist Erica Duecy writes that Bruiget's innovation added "a silky texture and frothy head" to the cocktail.[28]

Morris used advertisements to promote his bar and invention. The oldest known mention of the pisco sour appears in the September 1920 edition of the Peruvian magazine Hogar.[30] Another old advertisement appears in the April 22, 1921, edition of the Peruvian magazine Mundial. In the magazine, not only is the pisco sour described as a white-colored beverage but its invention is attributed to "Mister Morris."[31] Later, in 1924, with the aid of Morris' friend Nelson Rounsevell, the bar advertised its locale and invention in Valparaíso, Chile. The advertisement featured in the Valparaíso newspaper South Pacific Mail, owned by Rounsevell.[29] By 1927, Morris' Bar had attained widespread notability for its cocktails, particularly the pisco sour. Brad Thomas Parsons writes that "the registry at the Morris Bar was filled with high praise from visitors who raved about the signature drink."[20][32]

Notable attendees of Morris' Bar included the writers Abraham Valdelomar and José María Eguren, the adventurers Richard Halliburton and Dean Ivan Lamb, the anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, and the businessmen Elmer Faucett and José Lindley.[21][33] In his memoir, Lamb recalls his experience with the pisco sour in Morris' Bar, commenting that it "tasted like a pleasant soft drink" and that he felt disoriented after drinking a second one despite a bartender's stern objection that "one was usually sufficient."[21]

Over time, competition from nearby bars and Victor Morris' deteriorating health led to the decline and fall of his enterprise. Due to his worsening constitution, Morris delegated most of the bartending to his employees. Adding to the problem, nearby competitors, such as the Hotel Bolívar and the Hotel Lima Country Club, housed bars that took clientele away from Morris' Bar. Moreover, Toro-Lira discovered that Morris accused four of his former bartenders of intellectual property theft after they left to work in one of these competing establishments.[29] In 1929, Morris declared voluntary bankruptcy and closed his saloon. A few months later, on June 11, Victor Vaughen Morris died of cirrhosis.[20][29]

The Hotel Bolívar is among several Lima hotels still serving the pisco sour cocktail since the closure of Morris' Bar

Historian Luis Alberto Sánchez writes that, after Morris closed his bar, some of his bartenders left to work in other locales.[20] Bruiget began working as a bartender for the nearby Grand Hotel Maury, where he continued to serve his pisco sour recipe. His success with the drink led local Limean oral tradition to associate the Hotel Maury as the original home of the pisco sour.[20] Sánchez, who in his youth also frequented Morris' Bar, writes in his memoir that two of Morris' other apprentices, Leonidas Cisneros Arteta and Augusto Rodríguez, opened their own bars.[34]

As other former apprentices of Morris found work elsewhere, they also spread the pisco sour recipe.[31] Since at least 1927, pisco sours started being sold in Chile, most notably at the Club de la Unión, a high-class gentlemen's club in downtown Santiago.[35] During the 1930s, the drink made its way into California, reaching bars as far north as the city of San Francisco.[23] Restaurateur Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr., remembers serving pisco sours at the original Trader Vic's tiki bar in Oakland, in 1934, to a traveler who had read about the cocktail in Life magazine.[36] By at least the late 1960s, the cocktail also found its way to New York.[37]

Beatriz Jiménez, a journalist from the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, indicates that back in Peru, the luxury hotels of Lima adopted the pisco sour as their own in the 1940s.[38] An oil bonanza attracted foreign attention to Peru during the 1940s and 1950s. In his 1943 guidebook promoting "inter-American understanding" during the Second World War, explorer Earl Parker Hanson writes that pisco and "the famous pisco sour" were favored by foreigners residing in Peru.[39] Among the foreign visitors to Lima were renowned Hollywood actors who were fascinated by the pisco sour.[27][40] Jiménez recollected oral traditions claiming an inebriated Ava Gardner had to be carried away by John Wayne after drinking too many pisco sours. Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles are said to have been big fans of what they described as "that Peruvian drink."[38] In his autobiography, actor Ray Milland recalls drinking the cocktail in Lima's Government Palace during the Bustamante presidency of the 1940s, first finding it "a most intriguing drink" and then, after delivering a "brilliant dedication speech" whose success he partly attributed to the cocktail, charmingly referred to it as "the lovely pisco sour."[41]

In 1969, Sánchez wrote that the Hotel Maury still served the "authentic" Pisco sour from Morris' Bar.[34] Pan American World Airways included the pisco sour in a drinking tips section for the 1978 edition of its Encyclopedia of Travel guidebook, warning travelers to Peru that "[t]he pisco sour looks innocent, but is potent."[42] Bolivian journalist Ted Córdova Claure wrote, in 1984, that the Hotel Bolívar stood as a monument to the decadence of the Peruvian oligarchy (in Spanish: "Este hotel es un monumento a la decadencia de la oligarquía peruana."). He noted the locale as being the traditional home of the pisco sour and recommended it as one of the best hotels in Lima.[43] Nowadays, the Hotel Bolivar continues to offer the cocktail in its "El Bolivarcito" bar,[44] while the Country Club Lima Hotel offers the drink in its "English Bar" saloon.[45]

Victor Vaughen Morris is considered by most historians to be the inventor of the pisco sour cocktail.[28] Nonetheless, the cocktail's traditional origin story is complicated with findings that suggest otherwise. Based on the recipe from the 1903 Peruvian cookbook Manual de Cocina a la Criolla, researcher Nico Vera considers that "the origin of the Pisco Sour may be a traditional creole cocktail made in Lima over 100 years ago."[64] Based on the clipping from the 1921 West Coast Leader news article, McDonnell considers it possible that the pisco sour may have actually originated in San Francisco, considering additionally that during this time the city experienced a "burst of cocktail creativity," the whiskey sour cocktail "was plentiful and ubiquitous," and "the fact that Pisco was heralded as a special spirit" in the city.[18]

Morris was honored, in 2009, with a bust in Peru

In defense of Morris, journalist Rick Vecchio considers that "even if there was something very similar and pre-existing" to Morris' pisco cocktail, it should not be doubted that he "was the first to serve, promote and perfect what today is known as the Pisco Sour."[64] McDonnell also considers that, regardless of its exact origin, the pisco sour "belongs to Peru."[19] According to culture writer Saxon Baird, a bust in honor of Morris stands in Lima's Santiago de Surco district "as a testament to Morris' contribution to modern Peruvian culture and the country he called home for more than half his life."[21]

Despite this, an ongoing dispute exists between Chile and Peru over the origin of the pisco sour.[65] In Chile, a local story developed in the 1980s attributing the invention of the pisco sour to Elliot Stubb, an English steward from a sailing ship named Sunshine. Chilean folklorist and historian Oreste Plath contributed to the legend's propagation by writing that, according to the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio de Iquique, in 1872, after obtaining leave to disembark, Stubb opened a bar in the then-Peruvian port of Iquique and invented the pisco sour while experimenting with drinks.[29][66][upper-alpha 6] Nevertheless, researcher Toro-Lira argues that the story was refuted after it was discovered El Comercio de Iquique was actually referring to the invention of the whiskey sour.[29] The story of Elliot Stubb and his alleged invention of the whiskey sour in Iquique is also found in a 1962 publication by the University of Cuyo, Argentina. An excerpt from the newspaper's story has Elliot Stubb stating, "From now on ... this shall be my drink of battle, my favorite drink, and it shall be named Whisky Sour" (in Spanish: "En adelante dijo Elliot — éste será mi trago de batalla, — mi trago favorito —, y se llamará Whisky Sour.").[67]

Some pisco producers have expressed that the ongoing controversy between Chile and Peru helps promote interest in the liquor and its geographical indication dispute.[68]

American celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain drew attention to the cocktail when, in an episode of his Travel Channel program No Reservations, he drank a pisco sour in Valparaíso, Chile, and said: "that's good, but ... next time, I'll have a beer." The broadcaster Radio Programas del Perú reported that Jorge López Sotomayor, the episode's Chilean producer and Bourdain's travel partner in Chile, said Bourdain found the pisco sour he drank in Valparaíso boring and not worth the effort (in Spanish: "A mí me dijo que el pisco sour lo encontró aburrido y que no valía la pena."). Lopez added that Bourdain had recently arrived from Peru, where he drank several pisco sours which he thought tasted better than the Chilean version.[69]

In 2010, Mexican singer-songwriter Aleks Syntek humorously posted on Twitter that the pisco sour is Chilean and, after receiving critical responses to his statement, apologized and mentioned he was only joking.[70] Mexican television host and comedian Adal Ramones also joked about pisco sour, about the 2009 Chile–Peru espionage scandal, on November 17, 2009. Ramones, a fan of Peruvian Pisco, when asked about the espionage, asked what Chileans were spying on in Peru, suggesting it might be how to make a pisco sour (in Spanish: "¿Qué quieren espiar los chilenos? ¿Cómo hacer pisco sour?").[71] In 2017, when told pisco sour was "totally Chilean" by an interviewer at a Chilean radio station, British musician Ed Sheeran commented that he preferred the Peruvian pisco sour.[72]