PERU TODAY

With a reception offered by the Peruvian Ambassador to Pisco producers, who travelled to London to participate in the fair, Pisco successfully finished its participation in Distil 2008.

Undoubtedly, it has been the most important participation of this product at the international level. ‘In the last 15 years I have been travelling around the world and visiting these kinds of events and I think this has been the most impressive’, was the opinion of Johnny Schuler, president of the National Guild of Tasters of Peru. ‘It is the first time that a presentation has been well-thought out. The presence of 18 producers who joint efforts to come to London as ‘Pisco’ and not as independent producers was the most significant highlight’.

‘My impression is positive, the effort was worth it’, assured Alfredo San Martin from the Commission of the Vinicultural Industry of the National Society of Industries. ‘We have seen the impact on people who arrived to the stand and it was really good. That the history of pisco is in Peru was clearly demonstrated and it is actually a high quality product with potential’.

Cocktails based on Pisco caused sensation

The outstanding stand, 13 metres long, which exhibited 130 bottles of pisco from different producers with the phrase ‘Pisco is Peru’, received hundreds of visitors such as distributors, journalists and public in general, who were amazed by pisco’s versatility for cocktail drinks.

Hans Hilburg, renowned Peruvian barman who travelled to participate in the stand, expressed his surprise with London: ‘it is a tremendous cocktail drinker market and there is a great opportunity to enter with pisco’.

The enthusiasm surrounding pisco was evident on the 19th during the workshop organised by Simon Difford – one of the most prominent international experts in cocktails and editor of the influential distillers guide ‘Difford’s Guide’ -, where Schuler and Hilburg showed to the most prestigious London’s barmen how to prepare some of the most popular cocktails made with our drink.

‘During the workshop I was surprised to see the reaction of the barmen. They were impressed with what we were doing because I was giving them some secrets that they did not know’, commented an enthusiastic Hilburg. ‘They did not have an idea of how versatile pisco was in the cocktail area’, added Schuler.

Lessons left by this participation

This important experience allows the pisco industry to draw some conclusions. For Johnny Schuler, this participation has allowed him to determine the type of market London is and the best way pisco may be projected. ‘I think we have to evaluate that pisco by itself will not enter to London market. English people are cocktail drinkers and we saw it at the stand. Hans impacted with his drinks. I consider that for this market of importers we have to focus on that objective: bartenders competition, cocktail competition, etc. We have to head that way’.

For Alfredo San Martin, the next step would be carefully analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of this first effort to prepare well for next year’s fair. ‘I am keen, and it is a unanimous feeling, to repeat this event in London 2009, which is a worldwide reference of quality. To enter through this door opens others and it is worth to do it again. Maybe improving some details that were out of our control but I am sure that we’re heading in the right direction’, concluded San Martin.

London, 23rd May 2008