Pisco Glow

With ingredients hailing from Peru, France, Barbados, and around the world, this cocktail is truly multinational. This recipe is the same as the Scarlet Glow, which I renamed because mine didn't turn out glowing red like theirs. It calls for:

• 2 oz pisco

• 3/4 oz pink grapefruit juice

• 1/2 oz yellow chartreuse

• 1/2 oz hibiscus simple syrup (equal parts simple syrup and brewed hibiscus tea)

1. Pour all liquids into shaker.

2. Shake with small ice cubes

3. Double strain into a rocks glass with large, clear ice

Pisco has long been on my radar, having strong roots in the Bay Area bartending scene. Pisco is a (typically) 40% ABV grape liquor originating from Peru and Chile. While the two will debate whose pisco is better, I'm personally team Peru for this one. It originally made its way to San Francisco by boat from Lima in the late 1800s, where ships needed to stop and refuel since the Panama canal didn't exist yet. Peruivans would sell the pisco to the American ships, who would ferry it to San Francisco, where it was soon adopted into the cocktail world. For this cocktail, I chose Bar Sol puro, a small batch pisco made in Ica, Peru. Peruvian pisco can only be grown in five designated regions in Peru and is not diluted after the distillation process (something Chilean pisco does NOT do). Because it is puro, it is only made with a single variety of grape, typically Quebranta. While ancholado or mosto verde pisco would probably work equally well, I typically favor single variety alcohols over mixed ones.

Yellow chartreuse is an ingredient that's quite hard to find in the US, and if it's available, typically sold at an upcharge due to its scarcity. Made with over a hundred herbs and plants, it's the milder cousin of its 55% older brother Green Chartreuse, coming in at 44% ABV. The color in both is all natural, by the way - green chartreuse gets its colors from the chlorophyll in the plants, while yellow chartreuse gets its color from saffron. Carthusian monks have been making it for literal centuries now as the monastery's main source of income, but they are wholly unconcerned with supply and demand, and only make a certain amount of bottles a year. I'm currently using a bottle I bought in Japan at a reasonable price (6600 yen, around 44 USD), but I bought a bottle last month at Ludwig's Liquor and Smoke Shop after I saw it behind the counter. "I see you guys have a bottle Chartreuse...when'd you get the batch in?" "Last week." "How many bottles came with the batch?" "One." "One box?" "One bottle." Needless to say, I bought it immediately. It set me back almost $100, but it was worth it.

While the original recipe's hibiscus syrup called for one part simple syrup and one part brewed hibiscus tea, I didn't want it to have any water content in it. Instead, I directly infused dried hibiscus leaves from my backyard into simple syrup overnight until it became a crimson red. I messed up by thinking it might be shelf stable, which cost me a bottle as three days later mold colonies had formed all over it. Even after putting a new batch in the fridge, mold colonies formed only a week later. The mold most likely originated from inert colonies on the leaves themselves, and are probably quite cold resistant, being able to survive being put in a fridge and freezer. I had to boil the hibiscus leaves to make a tea and then make the syrup off of that. A lesson well learned.

I love the flavor profile of this cocktail, and love that it is on the stronger side without losing the floral and fruity qualities of lighter ABV cocktails. While some ingredients may be hard to source, it's a cocktail that's well worth going through the effort to procure its ingredients, and one that I find myself coming back to due to its simplicity. A classic shake and double strain into a rocks glass with large clear ice, and it can be made in a couple minutes.