Melanie Asher’s Peruvian spirit

Macchu
Pisco, the brand she created, was released in Europe in
January 2OO5 and its United States availability is growing
steadily. It hit the shelves in Massachusetts in June 2OO6.
“It’s been a long ride and adventure. I’ve always had an
entrepreneurial mind,” says Melanie, 31, noting that while
all the other kids in school posted pictures of David
Hasselhoff in their lockers, she hung Donald Trump’s
mug.

“I
put it [pisco] in ice cream and thought, ‘this will
sell’,” she recalls, recounting the moment when her life’s
path became clear. And so began the journey that has landed
her in Bethesda, Maryland. From there she oversees, well,
pretty much everything, unless, that is, it’s harvest season
and she’s camping out in Peru. Asher is intrinsically
involved in every aspect of her pisco, a brandy distilled
from a single grape pressing. Not only did she develop the
brand and the products, which include the premium Macchu
Pisco, a single grape varietal, and La Diablada, a
super-premium blend, she devised marketing strategies. She
even participates in the production, involving herself in
everything down to stomping the grapes. To hear Asher talk
about the pisco industry is like listening to Diane von
Furstenburg clarify the impact wrap dresses had on women’s
fashion or hearing Lawrence Olivier wax rhapsodic about
kings as they’re portrayed by Shakespeare. “It’s all about
creating your own product and having your own stamp on the
creation. I’ve seen Macchu Pisco and La Diablada grow from
nothing. I was going through Incan language dictionaries to
come up with a fun name that’s easy to remember,” she says.
“There are so many regulations to making pisco in Peru, but
there are ways to put your own signature on it – from how to
cut the distillation to determining the grapes you use and
when you harvest to how you actually select the grapes. We
hand-select the grapes and press La Diablada by feet. Every
little misstep you make affects the output so you have to
put a careful touch on production.”

She’s so careful, in fact,
that as a neophyte in the vineyards, the veteran grape
pickers dubbed her “nima terrible” because she was
ferociously selective about what was picked. “I liked
getting my hands dirty, going out to fields at 5am with the
pickers. When you harvest, you can just grab a bunch and
there could be grapes that are rotten or infected in the
bunch. I want the sugars in the grapes to be at a certain
brix level. I’m very passionate that everything is done
methodically because everything in the end is distilled.”
The name La Diablada, ended up not coming from a dictionary,
but was taken from an Andean Carnival dance that translates
as “Devil’s Dance”, which has its own built-in poetic ring.
“It’s traditionally a dance between angels and demons to
achieve perfect harmony. And it’s always a mystery in terms
of achieving a perfect balance in a blend. There are seven
grapes varieties in Peru from which you can make pisco. Each
has its own personality. Muscatel is the Sophia Loren of
grapes – it has beautiful fine aromas, but a very sharp
bite, too. The Italia grape is smooth, but not too smooth.
It’s over-the-top fragrant. Quebranta is the ‘macho man’ of
grapes because it’s got a great body, which it really gives
to the pisco.” Or so goes the insiders’ vernacular. Such
explanations are only a small glimpse of the nuances to be
learned about a spirit with an enormous legacy and not a
little controversy attached to its name. In fact, clearing
up that controversy has been one of Asher’s motivating
forces. Establishing her brand has been more than a business
venture – it’s a matter of national pride. “There weren’t
any piscos in the US when I graduated from business school
except for Chilean counterfeits, so there’s a patriotic
sense I have of bringing pisco to the world,” she
says.

Any conversation with
Melanie about pisco will likely include her spelling out the
laws and regulations of Peruvian production. Those rules
lend themselves to a product distinct from the spirit made
in Chile, which also markets itself as pisco, much to
Peruvians’ chagrin. In short, Peruvians have been producing
pisco from the same seven grapes for about 4OO years. It all
began when the Spaniards brought grapes to Pisco, a Peruvian
port city. The spirit gained popularity in America in the
late 18OOs during the Gold Rush. Many pilgrims en route to
the west coast had to detour around South America and often
docked in Pisco, where they picked up laborers and the local
spirit. It became popular in San Francisco thanks to a drink
known as “pisco punch”, which was created by a bartender at
the popular Bank Exchange who turned his legions of
followers on to the stuff. Importation, however, ended with
Prohibition. During that same time, Chile used different
grapes to produce their pisco. When Prohibition ended,
political circumstances in Peru made it difficult to resume
trade and Chile stepped in. Things only went downhill
export-wise for Peru when Juan Velasco’s military
dictatorship ruled the country in the 197Os and wealthy
landowners were forced to turn over their fertile fields to
peasants who lacked farming skills. The peasants grew crops
that were less expensive than grapes, like cotton and sugar.
The pisco supply fell to the point that there wasn’t enough
for export. “Look where Pisco is on the map. Peruvians kind
of sat on their laurels,” explains Melanie. “They took it
for granted because it was so inherently a part of the
culture.” So with a majority of the product consumed
nationally, Peru didn’t register pisco for denomination of
origin status with the World Trade Organization.

Chile, meanwhile, got a
jumpstart making sure its product was formally recognized by
international trade acts. Both countries long claimed right
of origin, but considering how Chile acquired part of Peru
in a nineteenth century war, Peruvians allege the product
was stolen. Famed Chilean writer Isabel Allende weighed in
against her country’s practice in her novel My Invented
Country. She wrote, “We usurped the name of this liquor,
without a moment’s hesitation, from the city of Pisco, in
Peru. If any wine with bubbles can be called champagne, even
though the authentic libation comes only from Champagne,
France, I suppose our pisco, too, can appropriate a name
from another nation.” In the Free Trade Agreement signed in
2OO3 between the US and Chile, the US recognizes Chilean
pisco as distinct to that country. But Peru took the dispute
a step further to the World Trade Organization’s
Intellectual Property Office, which, in July 2OO5,
recognized the “pisco” denomination as a beverage of
Peruvian origin. Today there are seven regulations
controlling pisco production. They dictate that additives
are prohibited, fermentation must be all natural, and no
aging can take place. Under no circumstance is there any
contact with wooden barrels, which happens in Chile and
Argentina. “Their ‘pisco’ lacks body and viscosity. They put
it in wooden barrels to give it extra body. We call that
cheating,” Melanie deadpans. She explains that when grapes
are used to make pisco, the grape must is distilled and the
pumice – skin, stems and stalks – are discarded. Some
producers may add yeast and enzymes to aid fermentation.
Outside Peru, the byproducts are often fermented and
distilled and make a grappa-style product. It’s a less
expensive method of production, and often the spirit gets
its body from time spent in barrels or wood chips added
while it rests. In Peru, however, a good deal of the grapes
comes from the Ica region, an isolated swath of land that’s
irrigated by the Andes that has managed to stay
pollution-free. It’s pristine terroir for growing grapes
that impart enough body that no additives would even be
needed. Melanie refers to it as nothing short of “privilege”
that Peru has this naturally suitable landscape.

Charting
the path to the market.
Melanie’s crusade began before the official recognition of
nomenclature was granted. The path that took her from
entrepreneurial pre-teen with a penchant for trend-spotting
to market savvy brand owner has been long and comprehensive.
She majored in history as an undergrad at Duke University,
where she wrote her thesis on Prohibition and temperance and
explored why governments around the world control the
consumption of liquor. From there she went to Wall Street to
work in investment banking in a consumer goods company. She
hammered out deals with Skyy Vodka, Cuervo and Grupo Modelo.
Seeing the great margins in the liquor industry made her
realize it was possible to have a comfortable life while she
lived out her childhood dream. (The realization of how
substantially you have to invest in marketing came
later.)

Her next stop was Harvard
Business School, where she developed a business plan for
creating Macchu Pisco. With its heavily international
student body, Harvard also served as a forum where she could
do a bit of informal market research. She held “pisco
parties” in dorm rooms. “Most people heard of pisco, but
didn’t know much about it. They liked that pisco is made
from grapes. It keeps the aromas of the grapes because it’s
made in copper pot stills,” she says, implying how pisco can
appeal to those whose preferences lean toward wine as well
as those who favor white spirits. When she became president
of the Harvard Wine and Cuisine Society, she organized
International Pisco Competition at a Boston club. She
invited Sascha Petraske, owner of the famed Milk & Honey
as well as Little Branch and East Side Company Bar in New
York, and Alex Turner, who at the time was part of
International Playboy Bartenders, a British spirits
consulting agency, to an “International Piscology
Competition”. The contest? Create a pisco cocktail. In other
words, it was a demonstration of the spirit’s versatility.
She needed no further conviction that it was viable in the
American market.

All
in the family.
When Melanie graduated Harvard Business School in 2OO3, she
convinced her family to invest. They helped her find a
distillery to rent that was no longer operational. Today the
business is bolstered with her family’s input. Her mother
handles PR and her sister, Lizzie, is the brand ambassador.
Truth be told, though, Melanie gives her sister a run for
her money. “I do not go out without a bottle in my bag,” she
asserts. Only two months out of business school, she decided
to set up an importing company. She created Macchu Pisco LLC
so she’d be able to choose her distributor. In Massachusetts
Macchu Pisco’s distribution is being handled by United. When
distribution reached this state, she turned to her alma
mater again for further market research. In March of this
year, with her product growing in availability, she
organized the Second Annual International Piscology
Competition. Wine and Cuisine Society members arrived at 33
Restaurant and Lounge in the Back Bay to see Boston
bartenders Joey Farrell, now at Beehive in the South End but
who worked at 33 at the time, and Ari Bialikamien of
Aujourd’hui in The Four Seasons square off against Brit
mix-master Angus Winchester and Chris Cunningham, who helms
the bar at Dino Restaurant in Washington DC. The students
tried each bartender’s concoction and were asked to rate
each drink for its marketability, profitability and
sustainability, or how easily a bar staff could be trained
to make the drink. The winner was Ari for his Peruvian
Inspiration creation (see sidebar for recipes).

This is an ideal time,
where the market is concerned, for Melanie to make waves.
South American influences can be detected all over various
markets, from home design to fashion to food. The spirits
industry has recently been infused with South American
flavors: Cachaca has taken the market by storm in the past
few years with the release of several super premium brands,
like Leblon, Agua Luca and Cuca Fresca. Inevitably, the
public will put down their caiphirinias and try something
new. Macchu Pisco is already on the shelf for when they do.
“It all started with the idea that there’s this marvelous
product that makes everyone happy, why is it not here in the
US?” she says. “This is a cool time because it’s a
relatively unknown product, but it’s something authentic.
We’re very hardcore about pisco.”