Sadly this went the way of the dodo fairly rapidly in Peru, mainly because they love a good drink. The one thing in favour of my waistline is that at over 3000m getting drunk doesn't take much booze!
For the most part our downfall was based on pisco, which is a Peruvian specialty, a friend of my fiancée told us we had to try it so once in Puno we headed to a cocktail bar (pacha mixology bar on the main drag in Puno) at the time this seemed like a great find, the pisco sour we had was excellent and we recommended it to several friends, we also went there with a couple we met on our tour of Uros and sillustani, and with them tried to split a giant pisco sour between the four of us using only straws and science (they did give us a spoon but syphoning it using the straws seemed like way more fun!). I have included a picture of pacha's giant cocktail version below.
The pisco sour is a great cocktail for people who aren't keen on sweet things and who like their cocktail with a kick, we've drunk it in many bars and restaurants and as yet no-one has messed up the drink of pisco, lemon juice, sugar syrup, egg white and ice blended together. I have drunk one or two cocktails in my time and I haven't really got anything that I can compare it to.
Once in cusco we learnt a bit more about pisco itself at "the pisco museum" (10% museum, 90%. Cocktail bar), which is not far from the plaza de armas.
The drink is brewed by distilling fermented grape juice the discarding the head (the very strong initial distillate) and the tail (the dregs at the end) there are many different types (most of which are available at the pisco museum) ranging from pisco puro (single grape variety) to a pisco blended from many different grape types.
Apparently this came about because the Spanish only wanted the Peruvians to produce enough wine for their church communion and not much else. In the past there were up to 200,000 hectares of vines dedicated to pisco but this fell to around 10,000 at one point. However pisco is making a comeback and right now apparently there are between 25 and 40 thousand hectares devoted to its production.
The pisco museum has many different pisco cocktails as well as the traditional sour, all of which looked excellent however the best alternative to the traditional sour we found was a drink from the colca canyon called the Colca Sour. Rather than a fancy bar I purchased this at a market, outside a church on the way back from trekking in the colca canyon for 6Soles (1 pound fifty)
This sour changes the traditional Lemon for a round cactus fruit whose name escapes me, inside the fruit looks like a kiwi but to taste (without any booze or sugar syrup) it is incredibly acidic. However when this is put into the cocktail an blended the taste is really amazing.
If I wasn't already carrying a wine glass from a tasting all the way back in Chile in my luggage I would definitely be packing some Pisco for cocktails when we get back to England or Oz. I guess we'll have to hope we an find some where to buy it as it appears to have become my fiancées new favourite drink! You shouldn't visit Peru without giving it a try!
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