Pisco Sour Day in Lima

When is Pisco Sour Day 2027?

On Saturday 6 February 2027. Peru celebrates the Día Nacional del Pisco Sour every year on the first Saturday of February.

The day was made official by a ministerial resolution of Peru's Ministry of Production, the ministry that also looks after pisco. In 2007 the national culture institute declared the pisco sour part of the Cultural Heritage of the Nation. On the day itself, bars and restaurants run pisco sour offers, producers hold tastings, and plenty of limeños simply make a round at home.

Pisco Sour Day is one of several food days in Peru's calendar. Ceviche has its own day in June, and pisco itself is celebrated in July. In 2027 the pisco sour weekend falls right at the start of Carnival, which ends on Ash Wednesday, 10 February.

Who invented the pisco sour?

Victor Vaughen Morris, an American bartender, at Morris' Bar in Lima, which he opened in 1916. Mario Bruiget, a Peruvian bartender who worked for him, gave it the egg white and bitters.

Morris came to Peru in 1904 to work on a railway in the mining town of Cerro de Pasco, then moved to Lima with his Peruvian wife and opened his saloon. It became the place for Lima's upper class and English-speaking foreigners. His first pisco sour was probably a simple mix of pisco, lime and sugar, a local version of the whiskey sour. The oldest known mention of it is an advertisement in the Peruvian magazine Hogar in 1920.

Mario Bruiget, from Chincha Alta, joined as an apprentice in 1924 and, in the late 1920s, added Angostura bitters and egg white. That gave the drink its silky texture and the white foam on top. Morris closed the bar in 1929. Bruiget took the recipe to the Hotel Maury nearby, and the bar of the Hotel Bolívar, one of Morris' rivals, kept serving it. The Gran Hotel Bolívar on Jirón de la Unión is now the meeting point of the historic centre street food tour.

What is in a Peruvian pisco sour?

Pisco, fresh lime juice, sugar syrup, egg white and a few drops of Angostura bitters, shaken hard with ice and served without it.

The classic proportions are two parts pisco to one of lime and a little less syrup, with one egg white per glass. Bartenders shake it hard, first to chill it and then to whip the egg white, and strain it into a short glass. The bitters go on the foam at the end.

The pisco matters. Peruvian pisco is a grape brandy distilled to strength and not watered down, and bartenders favour quebranta, a mild, non-aromatic grape, for a pisco sour. The Chilean version leaves out the egg white and bitters. If you do not drink raw egg, ask for a chilcano, pisco with ginger ale and lime, which the historic centre tour serves in an old casona.

Why is February a good time for ceviche and pisco in Lima?

It is the hottest, sunniest stretch of the Lima summer, and ceviche at lunch with a cold pisco sour is the city's way of dealing with it.

February is Lima's warmest month, with an average high of 28.0 °C at the airport and lows around 21 °C. The grey winter sky is long gone, the beaches of the Costa Verde fill up, and the cevicherías do their best trade. Limeños eat ceviche at lunchtime, when the fish is freshest, so plan a ceviche lunch and save the cocktails for later.

It is also when the markets look their best, with summer fruit piled on the stalls. A fruit-heavy Surquillo market tour in the morning and a pisco sour at sunset on the Malecón make a good Saturday.

Which Lima food tours include a pisco sour?

Most of them. The Barranco tour and the two-hour street food tour make one in front of you, the cooking classes let you shake your own, and the tuk-tuk tour is the alcohol-free option.

The Barranco food tour prepares ceviche, lomo saltado and a pisco sour in front of you, from $105. The two-hour street food tour in the historic centre includes a live pisco sour, from $47. The ceviche, pisco and pollo a la brasa tour lists a pisco sour class with five flavours, though one guest says there was not time for everything. Criollo Nights in Magdalena del Mar includes a pisco sour, for eight guests at most.

To make one yourself, the Miraflores cooking class has each guest shake a pisco sour or a chilcano and taste pisco flavours, from $48, and the cooking class with market tour adds Miraflores hotel pickup and a market visit, from $67. Travelling with someone who does not drink? The Barranco tuk-tuk tour serves no alcohol at all.

Make ceviche, tuna tartare and your own pisco sour with Chef José Antonio and María Alejandra, for eight guests at most.

★ 4.9 · 2 hours 30 minutes · from $48

Explore the Miraflores cooking class → Tour details

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