WINE WORLD

The junior explorers in our community have visited South America often enough that they are expanding our culinary horizons. Many of them came home, looking for a wondrous elixir they had discovered down south, called Pisco.

Pisco is somewhere between a brandy and a grappa. Traditionally it was fermented from a combination of wine and must (i.e. grape juice), and some fermenters also used pomace (i.e. left over vegetable matter after fermentation) in the mix. It’s a nice liquor, a form of aguardientes. This is the spirit used to fortify wines like Port, to stop the fermentation and preserve the combined fluid more or less indefinitely.

As with all liquors there were people who decided the stuff was just fine by itself. It’s mostly produced in Peru, Chile and Bolivia. It has caught on in Argentina. Indeed when I first met the stuff, there were two forms of Pisco sour — the Argentinian version, which added egg whites foam, and the Chilean version, which was more or less a whisky sour with a spirit substitute.

SLGA lists a couple; the private stores may have one or two more. I tried El Gobernador this week. It’s a surprisingly nice, slightly grapey white spirit. I made my own version of the Chilean Sour, and it’s a very good cocktail. I can see why travellers came home so hot for the stuff. I substituted Agave syrup for simple syrup, and used less than most recipes call for. 30 mls El Gobernador Pisco

30 mls lemon or lime juice (I use 50/50 mix) 15 mls Agave syrup (or sweeten to taste) Cherry or Angostura bitters (Optional) 1 Mascara Cherry as garnish (Optional) Adding the cherry will darken the drink to a sort of pink grapefruit juice colour.

El Gobernador Pisco $31 ****

Frivolous white wine next week. Other wines on Twitter.com/drbooze.