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Pisco and Peru
1. The Issue
Pisco is as Peruvian as llamas and arroz con pollo. A
Peruvian meal is not complete without a pisco sour. "The pisco
sour is a cocktail made with a shot of pisco, a sprinkle of sugar,
a bit of egg white and a splash of lime juice, then either blended
or served over crushed ice, with a dash of bitters." However,
pisco's future has been marred by agrarian reform, economic and
political turmoil, new and more profitable crops, water pollution,
and a trade dispute with Chile over its namesake.
2. Description
The conditions for pisco were laid centuries earlier by the
adept engineering of the Incas in the Ica region on the
southwestern Peruvian coast. Ica was a dry, infertile desert
region before the Europeans arrived in the sixteenth century. The
Inca's civil engineering laid the foundation for future
agricultural exploitation in the Ica region. The Europeans acted
on the clue left by the Inca emperor Pachacutec and channeled
Andean meltwaters to where they planned to plant their vineyards.
Henk Milne described the Incan legend of Pachacutec:
When the Inca emperor Pachacutec offered his hand in
marriage to a fair maiden from the Peruvian hinterland
and was turned down in favor of her plebeian boyfriend,
he might have been forgiven for being miffed. But
instead of achieving the consummation of his desire by,
say, knocking off the rival and insisting on the nuptials
- or some other such straightforward monarchical solution
so common in those simpler times - he gave in gracefully.
In fact, just to show how sporting of a chap he was, her
offered to grant the lady her dearest wish. She,
evidently not be a material girl, said that her dream was
that the waters of the River Ica be brought to her
hometown in the desert. Fifteen days later, forty
thousand laborers wiped their collective brow, dropped
their shovels and sat down beside the 30-mile canal they
had just dug. The heart-smitten Supreme Panjandrum
dubbed this waterway the "Achirana".
The Achirana provided the Europeans with a sufficient water
source to plant vineyards with the Negra Corriente grape in 1547.
The vineyards were so prosperous that within ten years, Peru had
thriving wine exports to Argentina, Chile, and Spain. Over 100,000
acres of vineyards flourished in the Ica region. The cultivation
of the grape in Latin America was a result of Peru's success and it
is believed that the widely grown Criolla grape of Argentina and
the Pais grape of Chile are descendants of the Negra Corriente
grape originally brought over to the new world by the Spanish.
The Incas already had a favorite drink called chicha, made
from fermented corn and water. Chicha was a ceremonial drink for
the Incas and made only by women, the so-called "Chosen Women."
One of the chief occupations of the Chosen Women was the
making of chicha for the Inca and his nobles and priests,
and the making of it required the crushing of the
sprouted corn after it had been boiled. Much crushing
was required because much chicha was drunk. Drunkenness
was required, in fact, at Inca feasts and ceremonies,
since the liquor of corn was as sacred as the kernel they
named "life giver". No ceremony began without the Inca
lord or priest's pouring chicha on the ground to honor
the corn goddess, Mama Sara.
The Europeans, however, craved their native brandies.
"Through trial and error they found a grape called the Quebranta
produced a pure, highly potent, aromatic brandy which eventually
became known by the port from which it was exported to grateful
drinkers abroad: Pisco."
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