A Cocktail Tour of Latin America

After sheltering at home for nearly three months, I’ve begun dreaming about traveling.

While it’s going to be awhile before I head out on the road again, I’ve been able to stave off my wanderlust recently by reading award-winning bartender Ivy Mix’s new book, Spirits of Latin America. It chronicles her extensive travels across, you guessed it, Latin America and includes concise and engaging histories of the region’s different types of liquor, as well as a hundred of her own cocktail recipes and lovely photos. (The drinks, many of which are served at her acclaimed Brooklyn bar Leyenda, are worth buying the book for alone.) 

The book is divided into three main sections: spirits made from agave, spirits made from sugarcane and spirits made from grapes. It’s a clever way to group the info and the drinks, and also allows you to understand the interconnectedness of the different drinking cultures.

Whenever the travel ban is lifted, I now have several new destinations I want to visit, thanks to Mix. In the meantime, whenever I start dreaming about a trip, I’m going to fix one of her drinks. 

To get you on your way try her recipes for the classic Pisco Sour and her original Pan Am Sour.

Courtesy Shannon Sturgis

“Morris’s Bar, opened in 1916 in Lima, Peru, by American expat Victor Morris, solidified pisco’s place within the world of classic cocktails with the Pisco Sour, for which Morris is credited as inventor. Morris died in 1939, at which point his many bartenders spread around the world, carrying the Pisco Sour and other great drinks with them. 

At our current moment in history, the Pisco Sour is what keeps pisco on the map. This version is my own, using lemon and lime juice to attempt to mimic the flavor of the small, acidic limes of South America.”

INGREDIENTS

• 2 oz BarSol Acholado Peruvian Pisco
• .5 oz Lemon juice 
• .5 oz Lime juice 
• .75 oz Simple syrup 
• .5 oz Egg white 
• 4 drops Angostura Bitters
• Glass: Coupe

DIRECTIONS

Add all of the ingredients, except the Angostura Bitters, to a shaker. Dry shake without ice to emulsify the egg white. Add ice, shake, and strain into a coupe glass. Garnish by dropping the bitters on top.

“Shortly after Leyenda opened, our friend David Wondrich, noted cocktail historian, came in with his wife, Karen, for a drink and a hello. I was behind the bar and upon hearing that Dave wanted, ‘You know, whatever,’ I decided to go to one of his all-time favorites, the New York Sour from when I worked across the street at the Clover Club. I reworked it Leyenda-style. Dave named the resulting drink himself, after the defunct airline on which he’d once traveled the Americas.”

INGREDIENTS

• 1.25 oz Elijah Craig Bourbon Whiskey
• .75 oz Avuá Prata Cachaça
• .75 oz Simple syrup 
• .25 oz Orange juice
• .5 oz Malbec red wine
• Glass: Coupe

DIRECTIONS

Add all of the ingredients, except the wine, to a shaker and fill with ice. Shake, and fine-strain into a coupe glass. Gently pour the Malbec over a spoon to float a layer of wine on top of the drink.

Reprinted with permission from Spirits of Latin America by Ivy Mix, copyright © 2020. Photographs by Shannon Sturgis. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Penguin Random House, Inc.