“Hello bartender? Please water down my normally delicious gin with vodka.” It may sound cool to order a vesper, maybe you imagine yourself as the blue eyed, pouty lipped Daniel Craig version of James Bond, but you’re doing yourself no justice. One, you’re not even close to being as cool Daniel Craig in any way shape or form, and two, eight million vespers later, you’ll still be the same jerk who orders vespers. In other, more direct words, the vesper is a shitty cocktail and you’re a boring lame-o for ordering one. Yes, yes, it originally appeared in Casino Royale (the book, not the movie) where Bond ordered “Three measures gin, one measure vodka, a half measure of Kina Lillet, shaken not stirred.” Yawn. Who farted? I mean, I’ll almost never scoff at or judge another person’s drink order unless it’s truly head scratching, but I will question the existence of bad tasting drinks and why people order them. There’s a slew of terrible cocktails out there that bank on name recognition and not much else. Blood and Sand anyone?

A true gin head would never ask for vodka in their gin. Plain and simple.

So, I’ve corrected it a bit. Instead of vodka, pisco. Voila! Basically a cooler, lesser known, better version of vodka (actual flavor!). It’s a bit of a debate between Chile and Peru as to who came up with it in the first place but no one outside of those two countries actually gives a rat’s ass. Oh, you’re asking me what pisco is? Sigh. It’s grape brandy. So, booze made from distilling wine, grape juice, whatever you want to call it.

If I were to choose one cool thing about pisco it would be the current longstanding rivalry it creates between the countries of Chile and Peru. One says they invented it and so on and so forth. Gotta love a rivalry. Yes, there’s differences in how each one of them make it. Blah, blah, blah. Eater did a decent job in this article if you want to read up some more. I’d just be stealing their information and wasting my time reiterating it all here.

Anyway, before this post derails any further, let’s correct the normally crappy vesper and turn it into something drinkable. First up, the ratios are off, at least if you want to put the drink into a normal 5.5 oz. coupe or fancy ass Nick and Nora. Wait, you ask, won’t four and a half ounces fit into a 5.5 oz. glass? Well, dummy, you have to stir it with ice and that cause something called dilution. Yes, a major component of all drinks is water, otherwise the drink would be less palatable for the average person. A well stirred martini is going to be around 25-30% water. so yes, that 4.5 ounces of vesper with the added water will end up being 5.125 to 5.35 ounces and that’s if you’re paying attention, weighing your ingredients, adding water and chilling it all in a bottle. For anyone else they’ll probably give less of a shit or have little time or storage space to muck around (like myself) and just stir the damn thing and it’ll end up being either right up to the lip or overflowing.

There’s also something bartenders call a “wash line.” Blah, blah, blah. News flash for nimrods: You don’t want to fill your drinks to the tippy top.

Let’s just make it easy on ourselves. Life is hard enough. Pour the damn vodka down the drain or use it to clean the toilet. If you’re really hankering for a vesper, use pisco.

If you want to be a real debonair professional like me you can pour some pisco into a jar and throw a big ol’ Buddha’s hand citron in there. Tis’ the season. These things are everywhere and no one knows what to do with them, well no one except me and you now. Let it all sit for a couple of days, strain, then run it all through a coffee filter to remove any excess grit. Were you smart enough to remember to save the pisco bottle to put it all back into?

Vesper of Total Enlightenment

1.5 oz. London Dry Gin

1 oz. Buddha’s Hand Infused Pisco

.5 oz. Cocchi Americano

2 Dashes RC Tangerine Bitters

Stir, pour into coupe. Express with a lemon peel. Enjoy, pinky out. PINKY OUT GODDAMIT!!! NOW GIVE ME YOUR BEST BLUE STEEL!!!