juanito rosado (rosy-john)

1 oz Pisco (Machhu Pisco)
1 oz Gin (Death's Door)
2 tsp Lemon Juice (1/3 oz)
2 tsp Grenadine (1/3 oz)
1/2 Egg White

Dry shake, add ice, and shake again. Strain into a Sour glass and garnish with 5 drops of Angostura Bitters.

For a nightcap two Sundays ago, I opened up Charles Baker's South American Gentleman's Companion and spotted the Juanito Rosado which he had at the Guayaquil Yacht Club in Ecuador. The recipe lured me in for it was an interesting Pisco Sour variation that split the pisco with gin and made it a bit more colorful with grenadine. Alternatively, the drink could have also been a Pink Lady variation with pisco in place of the applejack. Given that the recipe stemmed from South America, the Pisco Sour as the starting point seems a little more likely. Searching on the web, the drink name appears to be common in Chile; however, it refers to a wide variety of recipes with the closest one being a Cognac, lemon, and grenadine combination and the quirkiest one being brandy, Fanta orange soda, and condensed milk.
The Angostura Bitters garnishing the Juanito Rosado provided an allspice and cinnamon aroma to the drink. The sip was a fruity lemon flavor sweetened by the grenadine, and this was chased by the Pisco's grape fullness and the gin's botanicals on the swallow. While I was not expecting too much from the pisco-gin combination at first, it was actually a lot more pleasing than the applejack-gin one in the Pink Lady. I supposed that it helped to have a flavorful pisco like Macchu Pisco and this balanced the potency of the Death's Door Gin rather well. Moreover, the gin added some herbal complexity that is lacking in the Pisco Sour. Overall, the Juanito Rosado was the most interesting Pisco Sour variation I have had since trying the Alfa Sour at Trina's Starlite Lounge.