Pisco is a strong Peruvian (and Chilean!) liquor. It’s a sensational sipper and yet equally awesome in a mixed cocktail. You may have never heard of this imported spirit, but thankfully the kind and knowledgeable folks at ClearGrape (200 California Ave BLDG 180S) on Treasure Island are more than happy to fill you in on what you’re missing. Based, literally, in the middle of the San Francisco Bay, ClearGrape has carved out quite the niche for itself as the distributor of America’s first full line of Pisco Puro. The company started when co-founders, Timothy Childs and Shelley Alger visited the home of Oro Pisco outside of Lima, Peru. After a tell-tale tasting they knew it needed to come back home with them. And pisco actually already had a fascinating history in the Bay Area: it used to be popular in the days before the Panama Canal, when boats would bring it back up here after long journeys around South America. Pisco [...]
San Francisco Spotlight: La Mar Cebicheria
While taking advantage of an unusually warm summer day in this city, we headed to La Mar – a staple of San Francisco, and a culinary (and cocktail) gem that we need to sometimes be reminded to visit every once in a while. Peru has always had interesting ties to San Francisco. Back before the gold rush, Pisco was imported to our fine city and shaken up in cocktails not far from where we sat down to have dinner. Located along the Embarcadero, the Peruvian hot-spot would have been close to where seamen offloaded their goods from Peru over 150 years ago. La Mar (now managed by Joselino Solis) continues to be a pisco haven that helps give San FranPisco its name. With locations across the world, from Santiago, Chile to Bogota, Columbia to Lima, Peru, La Mar’s San Francisco location continues to shake up some amazing cocktails to compliment one of [...]
Ancient Latin American Drinks
By Corey Hill The inhabitants of Central and South America arrived around 40,000 years ago, crossing over from Asia on a land bridge at the Bering Strait and settling into their new homelands. They built temples, created number systems, and developed agricultural techniques. And like all people throughout history, they figured out how to make alcohol from whatever was available. The landscape was varied, and the results were a dizzying array of drinks – from beer made from corn, a drink made from the maguey plant, to a meade-like concoction fermented in a canoe. One thing is for sure: the ancient civilizations of the Americas knew how to booze. Chicha The Incans presided over the largest empire in the pre-Colombian Americas, nearly 800,000 square miles in what are now Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina. The secret to their success? Strong central government, efficient administration, and an advanced military. Also, [...]
Pisco Takes Flight – Again
Refreshing Summertime Drinks for Peruvian Independence Day By Guillermo L. Toro-Lira San Francisco has always been a city that perseveres. Burned to the ground three times in six months in 1850, it continued to rise again from its ashes like the mythological phoenix, forever cast in the official seal of the City. Now, after being obliterated 90 years ago by the infamous Prohibition Act of 1919, another phoenix is flying again. This bird is pisco, a grape brandy that was the base of a punch that had its own mythological characteristics in the early 1900s. Pisco Punch is San Francisco’s first known mixed cocktail created in the late 1800s and the older sibling to the popular Pisco Sour. With Peruvian Independence Day on July 28, what better way to celebrate than with a piece of cocktail history linking the ports of San Francisco and Peru?
Read our Latest Issue!
