The Cocktail Spirit with Robert Hess

Hi Robert! I’ve had the chance to see your video about how to prepare pisco sour. Well, I’m a professional bartender in Perú and I would like to give you some tips about this preparation.

1. You have to use a type of pisco called “Quebranta”. I don’t know if you’re using it in the video because you haven’t mentioned.
2. I see you don’t use the ingredient’s standard proportions.
3. You don’t freeze the glasses.

I’ve won three times the tournament of Pisco Sour in Lima, and I would like sincerily to help you improve this cocktail.

I’m looking forward your reponse… Richard

It’s truly remarkable how reliably dissenters come popping out of the woodwork any time a Pisco Sour recipe is presented. Do Peruvians and Chileans argue as much amongst themselves about these drinks as they do with us gringos? Egad.

Perhaps what Peruvians apparently call ‘ lime ‘ is something similar to the delicious meyer lemon which is definitely like a sour orange and is something I can totally eat whole and enjoy.

To the pro peruvian bartender - what “standard proportions” do you suggest ?

what’s your simple syrup ratio indicative of ?  i only know of simple syrup as water and sugar.  curious what the 3rd part is and if that’s why your syrup has a brown tint to it ? 

if you pause on 1:22 you see Bob is using a Quebranta however I think that freezing the glass is both unnecessary, impractical and cheesy.  It’s served cold and if you are in such a hot climate then that you worry about it, I suggest drinking faster.  Or perhaps go the southern route and serve in a silver mint julep glass.

donbert,

The ratio applies to the whole drink recipe not just the simple syrup. Back in another episode (I do not recall which at the moment) Robert discusses what ratio he uses in creating his simple syrup. I will let him explain further about the type of sugar he uses.

Sorry about the confusion. I will change to reflect this better in the site.

Colin

Robert explained his simple syrup on the episode for the Daiquiri Cocktail - There were also some comments back and forth discussing the different proportions

The “limes”:
I’m going to embarrass myself for a moment and say I was watching Martha Stewart (sorry I like her) anyway a Texan had written in talking about what she thought were Meyer Lemons. The Texan was wrong they were a sweet lime that was yellow. I thought Martha had said they were Persian but now I think she may have said Peruvian.

The point being is: they were a yellow sweet version of a lime, and (if I’m not mistaken) “limon” is “Spanish” for lime.
So:
Limon = Lime
Lime= Sweet (yellow) Lime

TheQ
out

A lots of noise for that proportions! I personally like Dale’s 3/4-1-1 1/2 but that is my personal opinion.And something that i learned from Gary Regan-The right proportion is the one that your customer like!!! And about the creation of pisco Peru and Chile can claim for the name pisco only, because Muscat grape is from Europe and in the Black see region(Bulgaria,Romania) and Mideterian(Greece,Italy, France) were making brandy from muscat grapes many years before Chile and Peru were founded, and distilation was brought to them by Spanish and Portugese people. I used to have girlfriend from Chile and friends from Peru and have heard them so many times argueing about it.And all they had to do was to open wikipedia and search for muscat grape but they just prefer to argue about it over and over again.......

So, are there any recomendations for commonly availible Pisco?

I’m in the Boston area if that helps.

Lots of info on Pisco on the wikipedia page. As you might expect, constituencies are isco">fighting about perceived biases in the entry.

The good news is that the Pisco Sour is a truly great drink, and it can be a great drink with many different proportions and Piscos.

Since we import Inca Gold Pisco as http://www.incaspirits.com we were delighted with your recognition of pisco sour as an international favorite. Perhaps you will follow with pisco punch, an American classic of the late 1800’s in the gold rush days of San Francisco.  Walt Bauer

Sorry to slide into this discussion so late…

Richard, this video probably represents the first time a Pisco Sour has been made in the US using that particular Pisco (which currently is not imported into the US, it was hand-delivered by a good friend of mine, note my name on the label , using Peruvian bitters, and made in the recognized Peruvian Pisco Sour glass (also hand delivered by my Peruvian friend)… and yet you still find reason to complain… :->

The majority of Pisco we get in the US at the current time is pretty sad. And what is available to me here in Washington State is REALLY sad. The most common Peruvian Pisco I have access to is almost undrinkable. So normally we don’t really have the opportunity to be picky about if it is a “Quebranta” or not.

The ratios I’m using in this recipe (3:1:1) are ones which several Peruvian friends and bartenders have told me that they use, I find that it results in a wonderful balance, and in the end, that’s my main focus with any drink. Recipes can have a certain amount of wiggle room to allow for a little personal interpretation without turning them into a “new” drink. The “original” recipe for the Sidecar is “equal parts”, but nobody makes theirs that way. I make mine one way, and various other bartenders I know are firmly set on other ratios which they prefer, all of which make excellent drinks.

As for freezing the glass… one issue there, is that I don’t have a freezer where I’m filming :->

-Robert

Donbert… My preferred simple syrup ratio is 1 part water, 2 parts sugar. This is often referred to as “rich” simple syrup. The one you see me using here is “brownish” because I am using Demerara (aka “raw") sugar, which I think provides just a little extra character.

TheQ… don’t be sorry for watching Martha, I watch her myself any time I get the chance. She may have her detractors, but I’m not one of them.

A friend from Peru was up in Seattle and I took him to the Zig Zag for cocktails, when he saw the lemons and limes behind the bar he was rather suprised at what they looked like, and indicated that in Peru, the “lemons” (ie. yellow citrus) were quite edible as-is. Totally different from the extremely tart fruit we have here.

I find the whole lemon/limon/lime issue quite facinating, it’s clear to me that there are varieties that others around the world are using which are quite different then what we commonly have here in the US. I’m traveling to South America in April, and specifically plan on taking a closer look at their fruit to better understand the differences.

-Robert

Owen,

Pisco availability appears to be a rather patchwork here in the US, with different brands popping up in different regions.

A brand which appears to be getting around a lot is BarSol, and it’s pretty good.

I’ve also tried Inca Gold, and like them too, but they are only availalbe in a couple of states so far.

Robert, are you willing to dish on name of that most common brand of Peruvian Pisco you find so undrinkable?  I have a couple in my collection, including Don Cesar and Montesierpe.  I like the former much better than the latter, but frankly don’t know enough about this spirit to know if either is any good.

(Guacamayo Pisco)

hey rob!
is it possible that the confusion of the lime/lemon thingey could have happened in other cocktails from other cultures?  fx the caipirinha??

Hm.  Never heard of it.  Perhaps that’s a good thing.

Hi! Here’s something: in Spanish, (different dialects notwithstanding), the word for lime is “limon agria”, or “sour lemon”. The best lime for bartending purposes is the Mexican lime, aka West Indian or Key lime (it’s the smaller kind of lime that’s full of seeds). It’s the most sour of all citrus fruit, hence the name, but it has that amazing “true” lime perfume that can’t be replaced!

A very nice recipe for the pisco sour, and I’m a bit difficult to please, having discovered the drink in Peru. I do think it may be a tad too sweet...mostly because it’s just too easy to drink at this sweetness!

I tried it first with the Guacamayo, which isn’t all that bad, if a tad too bland. I made it tonight with Don Cesar, and it’s much more flavorful. Which would echo what I’ve been told, that Pisco acholado (which is what the Don Cesar I found in Kirkland is) is preferable to Pisco puro (which is what the Guacamayo is) for a sour.

This also got me over my reluctance to make pisco sours in a shaker instead of a blender (even at the ranch I went to in Peru, they made it a blender, but they’d be making rounds of 10 or so at a time!). It takes a bit of shaking to get a nice foam, but it can be done, and the results are worth it.

Thanks for spreading the word about this great drink! Viva Peru!

So Mr. Doudoroff wants to know if we (chileans & peruvians) argue about pisco sour? well Martin, you only have to google “pisco sour” and see how we are saturating the cyber space with our non-sense chit-chat and mutual insults about this most-important-than-global-warming issue.
Posts like Richard´s are in fact only a sign of how fundamentalists we become when talking about pisco and everything related. I´m sure Richard didn´t try to patronize you or telling you´re making the drink wrong… It´s just that old itchy mood when some of us, peruvian bartenders react when other-than-we makes a pisco sour. We have to work that out…

The fact is, in the other hand:
- The 3:1:1 proportions are the usual and traditional for pisco sour in Peru, period. You could make yours in some other way if you want, but nobody can tell you that´s not the way peruvians do.
- Yes, we all saw you´re using quebranta, but you could also use some other kind of pisco and still make an excellent pisco sour, IMHO, an “acholado” or even an aromatic kind of pisco do the job even better… anyway, you went for the traditional way and there´s no reason to complain.

I´d just like to say thanks Robert, this chapter was really nice and I feel very proud you decided to include the pisco sour in this amazing series. You made a hell of a pisco sour and that´s a fact!

In the other hand, I saw lately a lot of recomendations about previous shaking without ice of egg-white drinks… To emulsify the eggs and all that. That got me intrigued mostly because I never had the problem of weak foamy heads, and always use the standard 1/2 egg-white per drink (when making those in shakers, using the blender results in even less egg-white per drink, unless you want your blender vomiting foam until tomorrow.) I´ve tried to figure why you guys have that problem and maybe is the use of boston shakers to make these kind of drinks… See, here we are very get used to 3 parts or (even better) all metal french shakers, and with those you really can shake like a devil and get a foamy head easier than with a boston (always taking care about spilling and all that)… You should try that way and maybe you´ll realize there´s no actual need to shake it in advance.

Finally I found really amusing your tale about your peruvian friend
And it´s funny because “we don´t eat lemons in Peru” the fact is we DON¨T have lemons as you know it (citrus limon, the yellow ones, you know)
What we use for pisco sour (and for lemonades too!) is what some people call “limon verde” (green lemon) and that´s what you call lime (I know there are tahiti limes, but some friends told me about other variety more related with pisco sour making… anyway, it´s lime, green, tiny and with a thin peel)
The confusion came because we peruvians DO have a fruit we call LIMA, mistranslated as plain lime, and that´s the mother of all this mess. The fruit in question is CITRUS LIMETTE ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limetta ) we DO eat that stuff and we DON¨T use it for pisco sour or almost any kind of drink, alcoholic or not.
I hope this help to understand this never ending confusion.

Hi Robert,
That was very cool. Now I know alot more about the Pisco Sour than I ever expected to. Yes, my experience with this drink was when I spent time in Chile. ON the lemon/lime question...the only limes I ever saw in Chile were little round ones, like key limes.
Again, so good to see you,
Karrie

On my recent trip to South America I was paying attention to the citrus that was around… never saw a lemon, even though that’s what everyone was calling the limes that I did see. The “limes” were all small, not quite as small as the key limes we get up here, but like key limes they had seeds.

Funny thing was, that I was talking with my friend about making drinks, and naturally I was using the term “lime juice” to refer to their citrus. He said they were all out of lime juice at the moment, so I pointed to the “limes” he had on the counter… “oh, we could use limon juice instead?” :->… so what then was the “lime juice” he was refering to that he was out of? Come to find out that when they would see a “US” recipe calling for lime juice, they would figure what was intended was “Rose’s Lime Juice"… :-<

This whole lemon/lime problem won´t be solved until we all begin using scientific names to describe them fruits I´m not exactly a botanical expert, but if my superficial research is correct, the small green lemons we use in Brazil to make caipirinhas, locally refered to as “tahiti lemons” must be some sort of “Citrus limon”. I looked for some pictures of it, but the ones I saw looked a little like another varitation of brazilian lemons that can be sucessfuly used in caipirinhas: the devil lemon (limão capeta). It is about the same size of the tahiti lemon, but is has yellow skin and the pulp looks pinkish or sometimes even red. By its name you can imagine how bitter it is but it taste much better than one might think.

Anyway, I also found out that tahiti lemon is a hybrid, so I won´t even bother looking for its exact scientific name, because I might even not have one. All in all, if you want to make a good caipirinha, get the smallest greenest bitterest lemons (os limes, whatever) you can find.

Hi Daniel,

You’re right, it would be great to clarify all these lime issues! First off, though, it’s not a Tahiti Lemon, but a Tahiti Lime (the confusion probably comes in because, as I understand it, the Portuguese word for lemon and lime is the same—"limao"). The Tahiti Lime is indeed a hybrid, and its scientific name is Citrus Latifolia. It works great in all drinks which require lime juice, but it kind of pales in comparison to the “true” lime, aka “Key Lime”, “West Indian Lime” or “Mexican Lime"—this is the small, intensely-flavoured lime, with the seeds in it (his name is Citrus Aurantifolia).

-Regards!

Unfortunally, in my trips to USA, I couldn’t find any Pisco Sour with the same peruvian taste.  I wonder if this comes from the Lemon/Lime/Limon issue.

Felicitaciones Daniel, muy acertados tus comentarios.
¡ Viva el Peru !

David,
I expect that your lack of finding a Pisco Sour here in the US had less to do with the lemon/lime/limon issue, then it does with the quality of the Pisco commonly available, as well as the lack of familiarity bartenders have with properly making this drink.

-Robert

So if I happen to be in Wash. and I am interested in making a quality Pisco sour, what should I do?

In Washington, we don’t currently have a regular supply of what I’d call a “quality” pisco. However if you live near Kirkland, stop in at their liquor store, since they have a supply of Cesar Pisco. It was part of a large special order made by a Peruvian restaurnat in Kirkland right before they went out of business. There are better Piscos out there, but I think this is the best we currently have access to in WA.

-Robert