Although the preparation of pisco-based mixed beverages possibly dates back to the 1700s, historians and drink experts agree that the cocktail as it is known today was invented in the early 1920s in Lima, the capital of Peru, by the American bartender Victor Vaughen Morris.

The oldest known mentions of the pisco sour are found in newspaper and magazine advertisements, dating to the early 1920s, for Morris and his bar published in Peru and Chile.

Subsequent demand for a stronger drink caused Pisco and the nearby city of Ica to establish distilleries "to make wine into brandy",[6] and the product received the name of the port from where it was distilled and exported.

Revoredo further argues this drink served as the predecessor of the Californian pisco punch, invented by Duncan Nicol in the Bank Exchange Bar of San Francisco, California.

[18] Culinary expert Duggan McDonnell considers that this attributes the popularity (not origin) of a pisco cocktail in San Francisco dating as far back as before the 1906 earthquake that destroyed the Barbary Coast.

[1] It was created by bartender Victor Vaughen Morris, an American from a respected Mormon family of Welsh ancestry, who moved to Peru in 1904 to work in a railway company in Cerro de Pasco.

[20][21] Americans emigrated to the bustling Andean mining hub of Cerro de Pasco, then the second-largest city in Peru, for work in the business ventures established by the tycoon Alfred W.

[28] According to Peruvian researcher Guillermo Toro-Lira, "it is assumed that it was a crude mix of pisco with lime juice and sugar, as was the whiskey sour of those days.

Brad Thomas Parsons writes that "the registry at the Morris Bar was filled with high praise from visitors who raved about the signature drink.

His success with the drink led local Limean oral tradition to associate the Hotel Maury as the original home of the pisco sour.

[23] Restaurateur Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr., remembers serving pisco sours at the original Trader Vic's tiki bar in Oakland, in 1934, to a traveler who had read about the cocktail in Life magazine.

[37] Beatriz Jiménez, a journalist from the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, indicates that back in Peru, the luxury hotels of Lima adopted the pisco sour as their own in the 1940s.

[27][40] Jiménez recollected oral traditions claiming an inebriated Ava Gardner had to be carried away by John Wayne after drinking too many pisco sours.

[46] Daniel Joelson, a food writer, and critic, contends that the major difference between both pisco sour versions "is that Peruvians generally include egg whites, while Chileans do not.

According to food and wine expert Mark Spivak, the difference is in how both beverages are produced; whereas "Chilean pisco is mass-produced," the Peruvian version "is made in small batches.

"[49] Cocktail historian Andrew Bohrer focuses his comparison on taste, claiming that "[i]n Peru, pisco is made in a pot still, distilled to proof, and un-aged; it is very similar to grappa.

[52] Lima's Hotel Bolivar serves a larger version of the cocktail, named pisco sour catedral, invented for hurried guests arriving from the nearby Catholic cathedral.

"[58] According to Chilean entrepreneur Rolando Hinrichs Oyarce, owner of a restaurant-bar in Spain, "The pisco sour is highly international, just like Cebiche, and so they are not too unknown" (Spanish: "El pisco sour es bastante internacional, al igual que el cebiche, por lo tanto no son tan desconocidos").

Based on the recipe from the 1903 Peruvian cookbook Manual de Cocina a la Criolla, researcher Nico Vera considers that "the origin of the Pisco Sour may be a traditional creole cocktail made in Lima over 100 years ago.

"[64] Based on the clipping from the 1921 West Coast Leader news article, McDonnell considers it possible that the pisco sour may have actually originated in San Francisco, considering additionally that during this time the city experienced a "burst of cocktail creativity," the whiskey sour cocktail "was plentiful and ubiquitous," and "the fact that Pisco was heralded as a special spirit" in the city.

[65] In Chile, a local story developed in the 1980s attributing the invention of the pisco sour to Elliot Stubb, an English steward from a sailing ship named Sunshine.

[29][66][F] Nevertheless, researcher Toro-Lira argues that the story was refuted after it was discovered El Comercio de Iquique was actually referring to the invention of the whiskey sour.

An excerpt from the newspaper's story has Elliot Stubb stating, "From now on ... this shall be my drink of battle, my favorite drink, and it shall be named Whisky Sour" (in Spanish: "En adelante dijo Elliot — éste será mi trago de batalla, — mi trago favorito —, y se llamará Whisky Sour.").

[67] Some pisco producers have expressed that the ongoing controversy between Chile and Peru helps promote interest in the liquor and its geographical indication dispute.

[68] American celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain drew attention to the cocktail when, in an episode of his Travel Channel program No Reservations, he drank a pisco sour in Valparaíso, Chile, and said: "that's good, but ... next time, I'll have a beer."

The broadcaster Radio Programas del Perú reported that Jorge López Sotomayor, the episode's Chilean producer and Bourdain's travel partner in Chile, said Bourdain found the pisco sour he drank in Valparaíso boring and not worth the effort (in Spanish: "A mí me dijo que el pisco sour lo encontró aburrido y que no valía la pena.").

Lopez added that Bourdain had recently arrived from Peru, where he drank several pisco sours which he thought tasted better than the Chilean version.

[69] In 2010, Mexican singer-songwriter Aleks Syntek humorously posted on Twitter that the pisco sour is Chilean and, after receiving critical responses to his statement, apologized and mentioned he was only joking.