MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The Picon Punch is a strong, bitter cocktail obscure in most of the country, but well known in northern Nevada. It's a culinary contribution from 19th century Basque immigrant sheep herders, and it's having a big year in the Sagebrush State, as Fil Corbitt reports.
FIL CORBITT: A late summer storm eats at the mountains above Gardnerville, Nevada.
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CORBITT: At the JT Basque Bar & Dining Room, cowboy hats, berets and dollar bills hang from the walls and ceiling.
MARIE LOUISE LEKUMBERRY: You just ordered your first Picon Punch. You look around, and 9 out of 10 people around you are also drinking a Picon Punch.
CORBITT: That's Marie Louise Lekumberry, whose family is Basque and bought the JT in the '60s. They've been serving Picons ever since. The Picon Punch has a lot of poetic resonance with northern Nevada. It's quite brown, often maligned and is almost always explained as an acquired taste.
LEKUMBERRY: I would say - in today's parlance, I would say it's very spirit forward.
(LAUGHTER)
LEKUMBERRY: Back in the day, we would say, careful, it packs a punch.
CORBITT: Marie Louise Lekumberry and her nephew, Etienne Lekumberry, explain the bitter cocktail is spelled P-I-C-O-N - unrelated to the pecan nut. It's named for its original main ingredient, Amer Picon, an orange-rind liqueur that is flavored with cinchona bark and gentian root.
ETIENNE LEKUMBERRY: Which is not a sweet root. You know, it adds - it really adds a body of complexity to the liqueur.
CORBITT: The Basque country in Europe straddles Spain and France, and the original Amer Picon is French. It's not clear exactly where the Picon Punch cocktail was invented, but the drink became popular in a few places in the American West where Basque immigrants settled.
LEKUMBERRY: It is the mixed drink. It is the dash of grenadine, the shot of Amer Picon, the splash of club soda - or not - and the float of brandy with a lemon twist. And that is a cocktail born exclusively within the American West.
CORBITT: By the 1980s, the original maker of Amer Picon had changed the recipe, lowering the alcohol content. Another company in California, called Torani, became the primary supplier of a full-proof liqueur for the cocktail. At times, that made the supply feel precarious, like in 2024, when a shortage swept across the state.
CHRIS BARKLEY: One day, we just didn't get Torani.
CORBITT: Chris Barkley is a bartender at Casale's Halfway Club in Reno, Nevada.
BARKLEY: Really find anything, damn near impossible. And when you tried to find a substitute for it, it just wasn't working.
CORBITT: The shortage only lasted a couple of months, but rumors started to spread that Torani might drop the product entirely. Then, earlier this year, they gave the recipe to a Nevada distillery free of charge, moving production of the main ingredient to Nevada for the first time.
JOE CANNELLA: They decided last year that they were going to pass the torch, and they chose us.
CORBITT: Joe Cannella owns Ferino Distillery in Reno, which got the recipe.
CANNELLA: We have - now have this, like, important component of this thing, this very important, like, Nevada thing, and obviously Basque - Nevada Basque thing. And it's my job to keep it going.
CORBITT: Shortly after the first batches were made in Reno, state lawmakers passed a bill, and in June, the Picon Punch officially became the state drink of Nevada.
LEKUMBERRY: People come to Nevada for the first time, they look out and they say, there's nothing here. And it doesn't take them very long to feel what that ocean of sagebrush just did to you. And I would say that's very similar with the Picon Punch.
CORBITT: At first, she says, the high Nevada desert can be harsh, like the drink. But once you get into it, it's really quite lovely.
For NPR News, I am Fil Corbitt in Reno.
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