Sour grapes

Pisco is a brandy made from distilled grapes that weren't up to scratch to be made into wine. It's the national drink of Chile.


Most bars in Chile will do you a pisco sour. Every bar has its own special mix but generally it goes something like this:

Put a handful of ice into a cocktail shaker with a heaped tablespoon of icing sugar. Add a good slug of pisco - this one's called Alto del Carmen and it's 35° proof - and the same again of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Give it a good shake - or find a nice barman to. This is Cheo and he works in a bar called El Cafe on Avenue Brasil in Santiago. Then strain into a champagne flute.

Pisco sours used to be shaken up with egg whites, too, to give them a foamy top (espuma) but Chile's Health Minister put an end to that some time ago. So bars have to do without them now.

The first few sips may sting your top lip and make your eyes water a little. It tastes like the kind of drink you'd only ever have on holiday.

But by the time you reach the bottom of your first glass, you'll start to warm up.

Then you might order another.