Friday Liquor Spotlight #20: Pisco Portón! |

Happy Friday, everyone!

We’ve told you before about our deep and unyielding love for all things pisco — but today we wanted to tell you about a new brand of the delicious Peruvian brandy that we’ve discovered and think is worth a trip to the liquor store.

Say hello to Pisco Portón!

In general, our brand of choice when it comes to pisco has always been Campo de Encanto, but after taste testing some Pisco Portón, we may have to change our buying habits.

As a refresher, pisco is a form of brandy made in Peru and Chile. It was originally created by the Spanish settlers in these areas who were looking for a homegrown version of the more traditional Spanish brandy, which was difficult to import. That same difficulty is what popularized pisco in the United States as well — it became the brandy of choice in the Western U.S. in the 1800s as it was easier to ship over the ocean from South America than get European brandy sent over land from the east coast. Pisco is clear, and has a very smooth finish characterized by sweet fruit flavors as well as a bit of spice.

Pisco Portón is produced on the same land that has been producing pisco in Peru since the 1600s, and they pride themselves on using completely natural and traditional processes to distill their product. They distill their pisco in very small batches and, importantly, they distill to proof, meaning that their pisco is not diluted once it has been distilled–what comes out of the still goes into the bottle. Most noteworthy though is the fact that Portón is a Mosto Verde pisco, which means that it is distilled before the fermentation of the grapes is complete, which gives it a very strong grape flavor.