Get Schooled in Pisco, the Spirit of Peru

When someone asks Enrique Sanchez what pisco is, he starts with the big umbrella category: it’s brandy, a spirit distilled from wine or fruit. But it’s different from France’s calvados (made from apples), or even Cognac (although both are made from grapes), since those spirits are aged for years in oak barrels and Peruvian pisco is never aged in wood. Sanchez stocks 20 different bottles of Peruvian pisco at San Francisco’s School Night, all made from grapes, with no water added, either. “It’s just a pure expression of the grape itself,” he says. While bartenders have doctored up cocktails with sweet elderflower liqueur and oak-smoothed spirits for years, Sanchez believes pisco works better. He loves how the spirit adds heady, floral aroma to cocktails naturally, giving drinkers a sensation of sugar that isn’t actually residual sweetness. And pisco, he explains, can offer the rich, luxurious texture people seek out in barrel-aged liquors, without covering over the grape’s inherent character with oak.

Legally speaking, Peruvian pisco can be made from eight different grapes, in five different regions. The grapes are fermented, distilled once, rested, and either bottled as single-varietal Puros or blended together to make Acholados. If the fermentation is cut short—so distillation begins on a still-sweet liquid—the resulting rich style of pisco is called Mosto Verde. Sanchez recommends drinking these neat to enjoy the intense, layered aromatics.

With cocktails, Sanchez likes to work with as many different styles as possible, offering a way for customers to taste the spirit’s diversity. He’ll sometimes line up a flight of three different pisco sours, since the delicate drink allows the base spirit’s aromatics and body to take center stage. He’ll start with a favorite—Quebranta—which he describes as adding a yeasty sourdough and apple-like aroma to the drink. Quebranta is usually a prominent player in blended piscos as well; Sanchez reaches for Acholados to layer in tropical aromatics that go well with the ginger in a tall-and-cooling Chilcano. In addition to Quebranta, there are three other grapes categorized as nonaromatic: Negra Criolla, says Sanchez, can add hints of cherry that stand up well to whiskey. Puros made from Uvina and Mollar grapes are harder to track down; the former has unusual tart notes, while the latter is quite soft and delicate.

The four other grapes used for pisco are categorized as aromatic. Sanchez loves Moscatel’s combination of tropical and raisin-like spice flavors; it’s a natural partner for fig preserves in lemon-brightened cocktails. Torontel is bright, floral, and a little funky; Sanchez reaches for this in stirred cocktails. Albilla offers mellow hints of banana and pear, which Sanchez likes to match with the nutty flavors of Madeira. But he calls Italia the “most important” of the bunch, his go-to for drinks that need big pineapple and mango-like flavors, like his refreshing Principal’s Punch (recipe). Spiced with a mix of herbal génépy and clove- and ginger-laced Velvet Falernum, it’s a vibrant spin on the pisco punch that San Franciscans have been drinking for more than 120 years. “I enjoy introducing pisco to people because it’s part of my own history, and I try to keep my culture close to me,” says Sanchez. “I’m the pisco guy—I carry that spirit in my soul.”​

Maggie Hoffman is a San Francisco-based writer and author of The One-Bottle Cocktail: More than 80 Recipes with Fresh Ingredients and a Single Spirit and Batch Cocktails: Make-Ahead Pitcher Drinks for Every Occasion (both Ten Speed Press). She’ll never turn down a pisco punch.