Welcome to Pisco Trail, my blog about Peruvian cuisine and Pisco cocktails. I make cocktails, write stories, develop recipes, cook dishes, and take photographs. My mission is to share Peruvian food, drinks, and culture with you.

I also do pop-up dinners and teach cooking classes that are a gastronomical tour of Peru’s criollo cuisine — a 500 year fusion of Inca, Spanish, African, Chinese, and Japanese cultures.

Pisco, a clear and unaged eau de vie or aguardiente, is the first grape distillate in the Americas and was first produced 400 years ago in the Ica Valley of Peru. Pisco is also the name of a port in Ica. In Quechua, the language of the Incas, Pisco means “little bird.”

Pisco Trail refers to the roads connecting all the Pisco distilleries in the Ica Valley, but it also refers to Pisco’s journey to California during the Gold Rush, and to my personal journey from Peru to San Francisco.

I invite you to visit my calendar of upcoming pop-up dinners and classes, explore traditional Peruvian recipes or original Pisco cocktails, and follow Pisco Trail on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

— Nico Vera