The first time I had a pisco sour cocktail was when I was 21. I was dining out at a Peruvian restaurant in Somerville, Massachusetts, with my then boyfriend and his then roommate and friend, and they introduced me to the pisco sour. The roommate was Chilean, originally from Santiago, and was at Harvard doing his PhD in astronomy. He told me he missed Chilean food, and since there weren’t any Chilean restaurants he could find in the Boston area, he had to settle for Peruvian to get his “home food” fix, as it was the next best and closest thing. Pisco was one of the best things to come out of Chile, and he loved making them and drinking them.

The pisco sour is a fairly simple cocktail: pisco (a brandy-like, grape-based liqueur), fresh squeezed lime juice, simple syrup, topped with a fresh frothy egg white and a dash of bitters. It was a revelation in my mouth, as I was experiencing two new tastes and sensations at the same time: it was the first time I was tasting pisco, and the first time I was enjoying a raw egg white in a drink. And I was in heaven. It was frothy, luscious, sweet, tart, smooth, with just a hint of bitter (from the bitters, duh). I couldn’t believe how delicious and complex this drink was!

Pisco is essentially an un-aged brandy that is the result of distilled fermented grape musts and juices. Some say it’s like the Italian grappa since both are made from grapes. But what I did not know then, which I know now, is that pisco (and the pisco sour) are not just Peruvian, but they are also considered Chilean. There is quite the rivalry when it comes to the question of which country does it better.

A few differences exist between the two: Chilean producers grow grapes in desert conditions with very low humidity. Peru requires producers to use only grape eight varietals, while Chilean producers have 13 different varietals to choose from. Chilean producers can use semi-fermented young wine as their Peruvian counterparts do, but they prefer to use fully fermented wine. Chilean producers can also age piscos in wooden barrels for a more cognac-type color and flavor. Chilean producers sometimes add water at the finishing stage to bring down alcohol content. In Peru, pisco can be distilled only once, and no water is allowed to be added. Because of this, the purists argue that Peruvian pisco is better. I don’t have an opinion on this matter because 1) I have no particular loyalty to either country and 2) I have not had enough of any pisco to have an opinion. But so far, my opinion from age 21 onward is that pisco is delicious, and the pisco sour is likely one of the best cocktails on earth. Simple.

I suppose what we could do is to try to do a tasting of Chilean pisco and Peruvian pisco side by side, straight up, to see how they compare. But this would be pretty tough given there are so many varieties and ways of distilling, aging, etc., that I mentioned above, so you’d need to do a lot of research to do a true “apples to apples” comparison. So instead, while we’re here, I’d like to just drink as many pisco sours as possible and enjoy how delicious they are, along with that luxurious frothy egg white top. Who would have ever thought an egg white, frothed raw, could make a drink so darn exciting? We each had a large pisco sour at a fun restaurant that was next to a major art museum in Lastarria today, and it was just as enjoyable and delicious as it looked. And I’ll admit: given it was so large, I left a bit tipsy — all worth it while in Chile!