Pisco Punch
San Francisco’s signature 19th-century cocktail and once the most-ordered drink in America. Peruvian pisco, fresh pineapple, lime, and a gum-syrup base. Genuinely strange—and genuinely great—once you make it right.
The History
Created by Duncan Nicol at the Bank Exchange Saloon in San Francisco in the 1890s, and so famous in the pre-Prohibition era that visiting writers (Rudyard Kipling among them) wrote about it as the city’s defining cocktail. Nicol guarded the recipe so carefully that it died with him when the Bank Exchange closed during Prohibition. Modern versions are reconstructions by cocktail historian Eric Felten and others, working from descriptions in newspaper accounts of the era.
Ingredients
- 2 oz Peruvian pisco (Macchu Pisco or Barsol)
- 0.75 oz fresh lemon juice
- 0.75 oz pineapple gum syrup (or pineapple-infused simple syrup)
- 2 fresh pineapple chunks
- Pineapple chunk (garnish)
Directions
Muddle the pineapple chunks gently in the bottom of a shaker.
Add pisco, lemon juice, and pineapple syrup with ice.
Shake hard for 10–12 seconds.
Double-strain into a chilled coupe.
Garnish with a pineapple chunk.