Yesterday he passed on a quote, Rudyard Kipling’s lyrical description of pisco which had been drawn to his attention by a reader of an earlier column.
Intrigued to know more of the context of Kipling’s visit to Peru, I went to Google, but could find only references to that same orphan fragment of a quote, until I consulted the copy of From Sea To Sea, a collection of travel pieces published in 1899, which is available free on Project Gutenberg.
A search for ‘pisco’ yielded no result.
Persistence with other search terms eventually turned up the following, which comes from Part 1 No. XXIV: Shows How Through Folly I Assisted At A Murder And Was Afraid. The Rule Of The Democracy And The Despotism Of The Alien [in San Francisco]
In the heart of the business quarter, where banks and bankers are thickest, and telegraph wires most numerous, stands a semi-subterranean bar tended by a German with long blond locks and a crystalline eye. Go thither softly, treading on the tips of your toes, and ask him for a Button Punch. 'Twill take ten minutes to brew, but the result is the highest and noblest product of the age. No man but one knows what is in it. I have a theory it is compounded of the shavings of cherubs' wings, the glory of a tropical dawn, the red clouds of sunset, and fragments of lost epics by dead masters. But try you for yourselves, and pause a while to bless me, who am always mindful of the truest interests of my brethren.No mention of pisco at all; it is Button Punch, made by a German bartender which Kipling describes as “compounded of the shavings of cherubs' wings, the glory of a tropical dawn, the red clouds of sunset, and fragments of lost epics by dead masters.”
‘Button Punch’ is unknown to the OED.
The results of a Google search for ‘Button Punch’ are overwhelmed by buttons of the kind you carry on your jacket, but persistence located the following, from Gary Regan in the wonderfully named column The Cocktailian from the San Francisco Chronicle:
"Most people agree that Button Punch probably had a Pisco-brandy base," The Professor says. "Pisco was very big in this city in the late 1800s. I can make you a Pisco Sour if you'd like" …
"If Kipling's Button Punch was anything like this, it's no wonder he compared it to cherubs' wings," Doc declares. "I feel pretty close to heaven myself right now."
So the wisdom of the crowd is the only authority we have for believing that Kipling held Pisco Sour in such high regard
Old joke:
What do you think of Kipling?
I don’t know. I’ve never kippled.
Links
Update 14 May
According to the Kipling.org website, the identification of Button Punch as Pisco Sour may be attributed to Thomas Pinney, author of the definitive 2-volume History of Wine in America. See Kipling: Alcohol and drug abuse
