New movie podcast with my friend Sebastian di Giovanni: Paolo Sorrentino’s latest, La Grazia, a Christmas movie about euthanasia! A very poetic movie with remarkable cinematography, majestic sets, & beautiful acting. Also, an exploration of the suicide of Europe, as old honorable men are replaced by younger women who are out of control. Sorrentino brought this out at the Venice Film Festival, where it was widely applauded & received some awards—internationally, it’s available on MUBI if it’s not showing in theaters somewhere.
My cocktail is called the Pisco sour, a delight I recommend. Pisco is a spirit distilled from grape juice (the quebranta grape, brought from Spain of course). It’s the national drink in Peru. (They also make it in Chile, but my loyalty is to Peru!) The sour part is fresh-squeezed lime juice. The syrup I used is something fruity--strawberry-- whence the unusual color; usually, it gets a yellow color from the lime juice (& the Pisco itself might be amber-colored).
The Pisco sour is a shaken cocktail; the most old-fashioned aspect of it is the egg white shaken to froth. If you want to do it right, the rule is 3, 2, 1: Three parts Pisco, two parts lime juice, one part syrup. If you want to enjoy smelling it as much as drinking it, splash a bit of angostura bitters on top of the foam after it settles into your glass. By the way, I’m told it’s a very American thing, it was invented in San Francisco during the Gold Rush of 1848 or so out of spirits brought up along the coast by merchant ships...
