Pisco Punch

This recipe came to me as the “Star Spangled Punch”.  I decided to re-name it…What is Pisco, you ask?

Pisco is danger in a bottle. My first encounter with Pisco was about five years ago on my first trip to Chile. To put it mildly, I was drinking at the Hotel in Valparaiso, Chile. My drinking companions were my former boss and our client. Let’s just say…don’t drink Pisco with people who cut you a paycheck.

Chilean Pisco is a distilled wine made from grapes grown in Coquimbo and Atacama. It rests for at least 60 days before bottling. It’s actually not as bad as I make it seem, but Pisco Sours and Piscolas are quite tasty and tend to sneak up on you. If you haven’t experienced pisco before, here’s a nice cocktail for you to try out.

Star-Spangled Punch

Ingredients
The peel of 3 lemons, each cut in a ½ inch/15 mm wide spiral with a vegetable peeler
¾ cup/180 ml sugar
¾ cup/180 ml fresh-squeezed, strained lemon juice
1 750-ml bottle Chilean Pisco
1 quart/1 liter cold water
1 star fruit

Procedure
Muddle the lemon peels and the sugar together and let sit for at least 90 minutes. Muddle lemon and sugar again and stir in the lemon juice. Add the pisco and the water and stir. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve. Before serving, cut star fruit into ¼ to ½ inch slices. To serve, pour into a 1 gallon/4-liter Punch bowl with a 1-quart/1-liter sized block of ice in it and float star fruit slices.
Serves 12 people.