Iconic San Francisco Dishes, Drinks & Desserts by Laura Smith Borrman

Author:Laura Smith Borrman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2018-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

La Mar pisco punch, 2017. Brandon Borrman.

The potency of the original formulation is credited with an ingredient not permissible in legal products today: coca leaves. McDonnell explains his findings:

In 1893, the Bordeaux-produced Vin Mariani, a fortified, aromatized red wine infused with coca leaves, captivated the attention of the world. Developed in the 1860s by chemist and health expert Angelo Mariani, Vin Mariani harnessed the magic of the Incas—coca leaves—in his wildly popular aperitif. Soon, many more coca wines followed, being produced in Bordeaux and California alike.

He recounts how the early 1900s saw a shift in thinking about coca-infused products, as “both the political climate for alcohol was souring and coca was being blamed for various undesirable behaviors.” Eventually, coca wines were banned, and the Vin Mariani of the sort Nicol knew was no more. Lillet Rouge became a rightful substitute after it was introduced in 1963, but knowledge of the once-famous cocktail in San Francisco had temporarily gone dormant, as its original generation of fans was no longer alive.

Along with McDonnell, Guillermo Toro-Lira is considered one of the modern experts on pisco and pisco punch, with multiple books on the subject. His first, beautifully named after Kipling’s poetry about the drink, Wings of Cherubs: The Saga of the Rediscovery of Pisco Punch, San Francisco’s Mystery Drink, kicked off a renewal for the cocktail in the city, and Toro-Lira has continued to evangelize for its story. One of the researcher’s fans, and a champion for the Peruvian influence on San Francisco cuisine and heritage, is local chef Nico Vera, who has his own blog, does pop-up dinners and cooking classes and is an overall force for all things Peru in the city.

Vera refers to Toro-Lira’s book as in the style of magical realism, saying he “learned more about the history of San Francisco than ever before. And now, whenever I am out on the town, I feel more connected to its past.” He’s “in awe” of the fact that these little patches of the city—in the Mission, North Beach and in the stretch around the Transamerica building that’s historically referred to as both the “Monkey Block”27 and the nearby “Devil’s Acre”—“are all connected to the history of pisco, and of course to Peru.”

Not only a cheerleader for Peru, Vera is a brilliant storyteller, driven by cultural, familial and historic connections in all that he does. Stories inform his food and his advocacy, and it’s impossible not to be affected by his passion for place. We first spoke about pisco punch, a conversation in which he was extremely deferential to Toro-Lira and McDonnell and all who have dedicated chunks of their lives to researching the drink. But I was most moved by my experience at his Andean feast pop-up dinner, where he presented, among other wonderful dishes, a traditional Peruvian specialty called the Pachamanca, so named after the Andean word for Mother Earth, Pachamama, an ancient Incan dish consisting of layers of meat, vegetables and herbs separated by corn husks and cooked in an earthen oven (pacha means earth and manca means oven).

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