How to make the Pistola brothers' Smoked Piña cocktail
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
It’s that weird time of year, when our minds are wandering to spring even as our boots are stuck in slush. The clocks just went forward, an early present from 2014, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that another polar vortex will sweep in like a troupe of pillaging vandals and send us into another whiteout.
Days like these call for a cocktail like the Smoked Piña, courtesy of the Pistola brothers, Jose and Sancho. I ordered it on a lark at Jose’s and fell in love halfway through my plate of nachos.
“You ever had the spiced slices of pineapple, like when you go to 9th Street?” asks the restaurants’ chef, Adan Trinidad. “That’s what [the Smoked Piña] is based on. We were in the kitchen, me and my sous chef, and we were fucking around, having piña with lime and salt sprinkled with cayenne. We were like, ‘Oh, shit, let’s make a drink out of this.’”
Trinidad is a huge cheerleader for mescal, so it was the first spirit he turned to for his created-on-the-fly cocktail. The smokiness of the mescal — Trinidad calls it “the mother of tequila” — gives the drink a warming quality. The scent and taste evoke a smoldering campfire in the woods, chased by a slow, likable burn down your throat. “[Mescal] almost adds another texture [to cocktails]. The smokiness, the aromas, it’s just a wonderful spirit to drink.”
Fresh pineapple puree and lime juice are the spring to mescal’s winter. The fruits are light-up-the-room electric, sweet, lip-puckering and suggestive of sun and warmer days. Even the smoothest mescal — Trindad uses Del Maguey Vida — can be pushy, but the pineapple keeps it nicely in check.
A wedge of pineapple freckled with chile piquin is the final piece, balanced on the rim of the glass like a parrot on a fence. Remember the winter. Toast to spring.
Make It
• 2 ounces pineapple puree
• 2 ounces mescal
• 1 ounce lime juice
• Pineapple wedge (garnish)
• Chile piquin (garnish)
Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain over fresh ice into a double Old-Fashioned glass. Cut a slit in the pineapple wedge, dust with chile piquin and place on the rim of the glass.
