The Cusco Bar Scene

Cusco feels like it has been reborn since the re-opening of Machu Picchu and the end of the tourist dry-spell. Business is booming once again as the hordes arrive in the Inca capital to visit the region’s star attraction. But seeing Cusco’s great archaeological legacy is done during the day… so what’s a visitor to [...]

July 15, 2010 | Cusco Guide, Peruvian Food

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Bar Maury and the Pisco Sour

Californian immigrant Victor Morris arrived in the city in the early 1900s and set up a bar that operated until 1933.

It is said that it was here in Bar Morris that the Pisco Sour was first conceived, invented either by Victor or one of his bar staff, based on the recipe for whiskey sour.

The new cocktail was a huge hit, and the city’s biggest hotels, such as the Hotel Bolivar and Hotel Maury began serving their own versions to their international clients.

Bar Maury took up the mantel, and according to barman Eloy Cuadros, who is now part of the furniture, it is here the recipe was perfected and it is their version that has spread across the country. It seems very plausible – Eloy served me the best Pisco Sour I have ever had.

September 19, 2008 | Lima City Guide, Modern Peru, Peruvian Food

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Peruvian Pisco Conquers the World

It was not much more than a century ago that, thanks to a bar in San Francisco’s Bank Exchange, the then little-known national spirit of Peru started making an impact on the international stage. Since then, due to under-appreciation by Peruvians, Chile sneakily claimed ownership of the Pisco brand, making and exporting a greatly inferior mass-produced imitation product that had run the spirit’s reputation abroad into the ground. For many outside Chile, Pisco was now considered junk.

September 17, 2008 | Lima City Guide, Peruvian Food

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