Cocktail · Medium strength

Pisco Sour

Pisco, lime, egg white, bitters — Peru's silky national treasure.

How to order it: Dry shake first for the foam. Three drops of bitters on top, swirled.

Flavor profile

Sweetness5
Bitterness3
Strength6
Freshness7
Richness3
Sparkle0
Daring6

The recipe

  • 2 oz pisco
  • 1 oz lime juice
  • ¾ oz simple syrup; 1 egg white
  • Dry shake, then shake with ice
  • 3 drops Angostura on the foam
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The story

The Pisco Sour is generally credited to Victor Vaughen Morris, an American expat who opened Morris' Bar in Lima in 1916 and began applying whiskey-sour logic to Peru's grape brandy, with egg white lending the signature silk. His bartenders, Mario Bruiget among them, refined it after Morris's bar closed in 1929. Peru takes the drink seriously enough to celebrate a National Pisco Sour Day each February, while the older quarrel over whether pisco itself belongs to Peru or Chile remains gloriously unresolved. It endures because it is a sour perfected: tart, frothy, and finished with bitters dotted across the foam like punctuation.

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