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"  Words on the Lewis Carroll cocktail menu had started to blur. Music \u2014 the slow, soothing Latin sort \u2014 had gotten louder. So had the noise, a static of voices belonging to people on the happy side of drink number three. Behind the spoon-shaped bar, candles lit up jars in various stages of fermentation. And, for sure, the flames grooving around the wicks had gotten bigger and brighter. I sipped my drink and focused on the foggy menu, as if at the eye doctor&amp;#039;s and trying to read those damn letters: &amp;quot;Naranjillazo... Zacapa... Fermented pineapple chica.&amp;quot; Sound tropical? Sound exotic? I was in New Jersey. Hoboken, to be exact. I was posted up at the bar of an imaginative South American restaurant, , where the chef, Maricel Presilla, has a few things: a slew of fancy awards, a doctorate in medieval Spanish history, and, best of all, a highly unusual but spot-hitting drink program. Across the river in New York (and in a big city near you) drinkers have become fierce about their drinking. Throwback cocktails are cool. So are futuristic drinks kissed by liquid nitrogen. The funkier the beer, the better \u2014 and the same goes for wine. Part of what pulled me to Presilla&amp;#039;s place is that she drinks under few of these influences. But I was also there to swill some Latin booze and maybe learn a thing or two.   Maricel Presilla  One endpoint of Presilla&amp;#039;s range is, say, the pisco sour in front of me on the sea-green cement bar. It&amp;#039;s lime juice, egg white, sugar, a blend of two piscos, and a drop of bitters. It&amp;#039;s traditional, and it&amp;#039;s damn good. Then you&amp;#039;ve got a one-off tradition, like the gin mojito, also in front of me. Finally, at her range&amp;#039;s far pole, you&amp;#039;ve got a ludicrously creative riff on a tradition, something straight out of a sunshine daydream \u2014 a rum old fashioned with cacao nibs for bitters, a glass of fermented pineapple water and Zacapa (rum made from sugarcane), or horchata (almond milk) spiked with an unpronounceable but fiery liquor (aguardiente). I caught up with Presilla at the bar. How else would I know about Zacapa? Apparently, pisco is as nuanced as wine. And \u2014 outside of a few old-school native traditions (booze made from purple corn, etc.) \u2014 South, Central, and North America have a drink culture with shared roots. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s the mint julep and the mojito, for example,&amp;quot; Presilla says. &amp;quot;The whiskey sour and pisco sour.&amp;quot; Here are a few things about Latin drinks I gleaned from her as the night went on, the music grew louder, the pisco flowed, and the pisco became tequila: \u25BA Latin American cocktails tend to be huge on sour. (The sour&amp;#039;s usually citrus.) \u25BA &amp;quot;The Daiquiri, which is so emblematic of Cuba, was created by an American engineer in a mine \u2014 the mine of Daiquiri.&amp;quot; \u25BA The Havana bar scene (think daiquiris, mojitos, and Hemingway) was kick-started by boozers escaping Prohibition-era America. \u25BA Liquors like rum, pisco, and tequila can and should be sipped with food. Pisco reaches new heights when matched with salty and fatty foods, rum with desserts. Tequila needs something spicy, oily, or badass enough to stand up to it.  \u25BA &amp;quot;Pisco is like grappa but better. Every pisco has a different flavor profile. For cocktails, bartenders prefer the pure pisco \u2014 Quebranta, the strong one.&amp;quot; \u25BA Raul, the bartender, works the cocktail shakers like a boss. He also makes a ridiculous pisco sour (4 ounces of pisco in an 8ish-ounce drink) and a high-velocity gin mojito. \u25BA &amp;quot;In Peru, people drink pisco pure with appetizers and desserts. Pisco, as opposed to other hard liquors, is an aperitif. It wakes up the appetite.&amp;quot; \u25BA In Latin America, people think of drinks as food. They eat-drink hibiscus wine, barley-thickened hot chocolate, horchata, dark espresso, naranjilla juice, and so on. \u25BA &amp;quot;The best food to have tequila with is bacon.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/drinks/a24364/latin-drinks/>