Pisco Punch
ClassicPisco, pineapple, and lime. The Gold Rush-era San Francisco classic whose real recipe died with its inventor.
Bright and tropical, pisco's grape-brandy warmth carried by pineapple's sweetness and lime's acidity into something closer to a punch than a spirit-forward sour.
Ingredients
- 2 oz Pisco
- 0.75 oz Pineapple Juice
- 0.75 oz Fresh Lime Juice
- 0.5 oz Simple Syrup
- Pineapple wedge · optional garnish
Method
- 1
Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice.
- 2
Shake hard until well chilled.
- 3
Strain over fresh ice into a rocks glass.
- 4
Garnish with a pineapple wedge.
The Story
Pisco Punch was invented in the 1890s by Duncan Nicol at San Francisco's Bank Exchange Saloon, where it became so sought-after that Nicol mixed the batches alone in a back room so no one could learn the formula — and he took the exact recipe to his grave when he died in 1926, a few years into Prohibition. Every version poured today, this one included, is a reconstruction built from secondhand accounts of what was in the glass rather than the original spec itself, making it one of the only true "lost cocktails" still on menus at all.
Recipe card
The whole recipe in one shareable image.
