The village had not always been called this. In 1873, after a smallpox epidemic, residents renamed their settlement La Unión. Then in 1936, under Law No. 5,798, the Chilean state rechristened it Pisco Elqui — a deliberate move to reinforce the country's claim to the spirit. The legal groundwork had been laid in 1931, when a presidential decree reserved the word pisco for grape brandies made in a handful of northern Chilean districts, Elqui among them. The town's very name is an act of national branding, and it has outlasted the politicians who arranged it.

Pisco is distilled from grapes and matured in wooden barrels, which lends it a whisky-like depth while keeping the bright scent of the fruit. The Solar de Pisco Elqui, the oldest distillery in the valley, sits near the town, and the surrounding hills are quilted with vineyards. Many travelers drink it as a pisco sour, sharpened with lemon, or simply with cola — though the local family distillers tend to wince at mixing a spirit they make so carefully. Grab a bottle, the old guidance goes, find the lawn in the central plaza beside the church, and let the afternoon sun do the rest.

The upper Elqui has long drawn people who feel the place is charged with something. A few kilometers down the road lies Montegrande, where the poet Gabriela Mistral grew up and where she is buried on a hillside above the village; her epitaph reads that what the soul does for the body is what the artist does for her people. The neighboring valley of Cochiguaz is famous for its mysticism and its seekers. What everyone shares is the night. Far from any city, the stars come down so thick that the advice for choosing where to sleep is simple: pick a place far from the others, and look up.