La Perla

Reposado tequila meets manzanilla sherry and pear liqueur in one of the most celebrated modern sherry cocktails. Earthy, saline, and softly fruity all at once.

La Perla was created in 2005 by Jacques Bezuidenhout at Tres Agaves restaurant on Brannan Street in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood, and subsequently won the National Sherries of Spain cocktail competition — an annual competition organized by Wines from Spain and the Consejo Regulador of Jerez to promote sherry as a cocktail ingredient. The competition win brought La Perla to significant professional attention and established Jacques Bezuidenhout as one of the leading voices in the emerging American agave spirits movement. The formula — reposado tequila, manzanilla sherry, and pear liqueur — creates a cocktail whose three components find complementary common ground: reposado tequila's agave earthiness with light oak aging from its two-to-twelve month barrel rest; manzanilla sherry's specific saline, chamomile-and-dried-fruit character (produced under flor yeast in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, the Atlantic coastal town where the sea breeze is believed to influence the sherry's flavor); and the delicate, aromatic sweetness of pear liqueur. The name La Perla — The Pearl — references both the drink's luminous, pale character and the pearl-producing coastal context suggested by the manzanilla's maritime origin. The cocktail became a benchmark for modern sherry cocktail design.