Background (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. The largest and most prominent vineyards of the 16th and 17th century Americas were established in the Ica valley of south-central Peru. distilled from fermented grapes. Since at least 1764, Peruvian aguardiente was called "pisco" after its port of shipping; the usage of the name "pisco" for aguardiente then spread to Chile. The right to produce and market pisco, still made in Peru and Chile, is the subject of ongoing disputes between the two countries. 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. 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". 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. 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."
Origin The pisco sour originated in Lima, Peru. 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. 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. Morris, who often experimented with new drinks, developed the pisco sour as a variant of the whiskey sour. 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. Some discrepancy exists on the exact date when Morris created the popular cocktail. Mixologist
Dale DeGroff asserts the drink was invented in 1915, but other sources argue this happened in the 1920s. 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.''"). The pisco sour's initial recipe was that of a simple cocktail. 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." As the cocktail's recipe continued to evolve, the bar's registry shows that customers commented on the continuously improving taste of the drink. 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. 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." During the 1930s, the drink made its way into
California, reaching bars as far north as the city of San Francisco. 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. By at least the late 1960s, the cocktail also found its way to New York. 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. 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. Among the foreign visitors to Lima were renowned
Hollywood actors who were fascinated by the pisco sour. 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." Nowadays, the Hotel Bolivar continues to offer the cocktail in its "El Bolivarcito" bar, while the Country Club Lima Hotel offers the drink in its "English Bar" saloon. == Preparation and variants ==