Etymology
There are several proposals about the origin of the word pisco. Pisco may have received its name from the town of Pisco, located on the coast of Peru inside of the valley of Pisco, made by the river with the same name. Chilean linguist Rodolfo Lenz claimed that the word pisco was used all along the Pacific coast of the Americas from Arauco to Guatemala and that the word would be of Quechua origin meaning "bird". This claim is disputed by Chilean linguist Mario Ferreccio Podesta who supports the Real Academia Española etymology that says that pisco was originally a word for a mud container.
Other origins for the word pisco have been explored including a Mapudungun etymology where "pishku" has been interpreted as "something boiled in a pot," which would in this hypothesis relate to the concept of burned wine (Spanish: vino quemado).
The drink began to acquire consumers in the sailors that transported products between the colonies and Spain as well as sailors of other nationalities, who began to call it pisco, naming it after the port of Pisco, founded 1640, where it was thought to originate from.
The oldest use of the word pisco to denote Peruvian aguardiente dates from 1764.
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