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Pisco Punch

Pisco with pineapple, lemon, a little white wine and clove. Fruity and aromatic — a San Francisco recipe kept secret for years.

Base: Pisco
Glass: Coupe glass
Method: Shake
Strength: 16% ABV

Ingredients

60 mlPisco
22.5 mlFresh Pineapple Juice
15 mlSimple Syrup1 swap
Sugar syrup or agavehigh
Little change
15 mlFresh Lemon Juice1 swap
Fresh lime juicemedium
A touch sharper
30 mlDry White Wine
3 pcCloves

How to make

Technique

Shake · 10–15s

Shaking chills the drink fast while adding dilution and a light texture.

Gentle mash the simple syrup with the cloves, add the remaining ingredients except the wine.
Shake vigorously and double strain into a large goblet.
Add the wine on top and gently stir.

Serve

Glass

Coupe glassAlso fine: Martini glass, Nick & Nora glass

Garnish

Pineapple wedgeCut it thick enough to hold its own weight on the rim.

Taste & nutrition

16%ABV

175kcal

2.25Drinks

StrengthMedium

Sweet to dryBalanced

Estimated from ingredient amounts and assumed ABVs — not a lab measurement.

Good to know

Use freshly squeezed juice — bottled tastes flat.

History

Year1890s

PlaceSan Francisco, USA

Created byDuncan Nicol (Bank Exchange)

Pisco Punch was the star of Duncan Nicol's Bank Exchange saloon in 1890s San Francisco, built on Peruvian pisco with pineapple and citrus. Nicol guarded its exact recipe so closely that it was nearly lost when he died. It embodied the Gold Rush city's freewheeling drinking culture. Cocktail historians later worked to reconstruct it.

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