Pisco has its origins in the 16th century Spanish conquests of Latin America and particularly Peru and Chile, where the conquistadors found fertile land suitable for growing grapes. So successful were these vineyards, particularly those using the hardy Quebranta grape, that soon the settlers were exporting crops back to Europe and challenging the sales of old-world produced wines.
At first, grapes not suitable for making wines were distilled into a brandy, similar to the aguardiente available in Spain and Colombia, and it soon became popular with sailors who began taking bottles with them back to Europe. They named the spirit after the town where it was bought, Pisco, which in turn had been named for the round earthenware pot that was used to store the liquor.
In the 19th century Pisco became a popular drink with the miners flooding to the San Francisco for the Gold Rush, and in the 1940s it again became a fashionable drink in New York and Hollywood. Celebrity aficionados have included the author Rudyard Kipling, who described Pisco this way: “(Pisco is) compounded of the shavings of cherubs’ wings, the glory of a tropical dawn, the red clouds of sunset, and the fragments of lost epics by dead masters.”
Production gradually spread from Peru to Chile and there has been a continuing debate between the two countries as to who has the right to claim ownership of the name. The drinks in the two countries are slightly different; Peru allows two types of production, the pure version still being made from the Quebranta, Mollar and Negra Corriente grapes and a more aromatic version made with different grape varieties. Chile only makes the aromatic version, and ages it in wood with some distilled water added in at the end of production.
Read more: http://ca.askmen.com/fine_living/wine_dine_archive_250/293_a-guide-to-pisco.html#ixzz1kzH6LmVI
