Grateful for his past service, we thought it was time to ask Gary for a cocktail he believes essential to our readers’ knowledge. His answer was the Pisco Sour, a drink reportedly created in 1915, by Victor Morris, an American Bartender from Berkeley, California who owned the Morris Bar in Lima, Peru.

Why is this particular cocktail noteworthy to a man who has collected thousands of recipes over years of travel and extensive “research”? For one thing, it is rare in calling for Angostura bitters, not as an actual ingredient, but as an aromatic garnish, dashed on top of the cocktail after it has been shaken and strained. “The Angostura bitters that are dashed on top of a Pisco sour elevate it to its classic status,” says Gary.

The base spirit takes its name from the Peruvian port where it is thought to have been created. It is distilled from a muscat wine and then rested for a short time in clay pots before being bottled. During the California Gold Rush of 1849, the brandy was readily available in San Francisco and grew to be very popular over the ensuing decades.

In 1937, Harold Ross, founder of The New Yorker magazine wrote, "In the old days in San Francisco there was a famous drink called Pisco Punch, made from Pisco, a Peruvian brandy... Pisco punch used to taste like lemonade but had a kick like vodka, or worse." Alas, the recipe for the Pisco punch has been lost to history, a loss many blame on Prohibition.

Gary fills us in:

Pisco brandy is unique—it’s colorless, like vodka, sharp, pungent, and has a somewhat smoky note that some people compare to scotch. It is produced in several South American countries, but Peruvian bottlings are favored by aficionados. Mix it with fresh lemon juice, simple syrup, and the white of an egg—you have to shake all heck out of this drink to integrate the egg white—and you end up with a silky-textured drink like you’ve never experienced before.