The Caipirinha...

Bom dia e boas-vindas! Good day and welcome!

Yeah that’s pretty much the whole of my Portuguese vocabulary. Apart from ‘espetada de frango’, which means ‘chicken kebab’. Got the basics covered then. But why, I hear you ask, are you talking in Portuguese?! A fair question indeed. Well today’s cocktail is from Brazil, home of beautiful football, beautiful women, and beautiful Caipirinhas! 

The Brazilian national drink, the Caipirinha, is a pretty simple cocktail, using pretty simple ingredients. The base spirit is cachaça, added to muddled limes and sugar. The key ingredient here is the unique cachaça; a spirit very similar to rum (derived from sugar cane), although most rums use molasses. As such it is the spirit of the Brazilian peasantry, mixed into caipirinhas and consumed on a daily basis. As is becoming tradition, I like to use the International Bartenders Association official cocktail list to get the basic recipe down. The Caipirinha is listed under ‘Popular Drinks’ –

CAIPIRINHA - (old fashioned glass)
5.0 cl.Cachaça
1/2 Fresh Lime cut into 4 wedges
2 teaspoons sugar
Place lime and sugar into old fashioned glass & muddle. Filled glass with ice and add Cachaça.
(Note: Caipiroska - instead of Cachaça use Vodka)

The name is most likely taken from the Portuguese word ‘caipira’, which my translator tells me means ‘yokel’, or ‘country folk’ – which obviously makes a lot of sense given the drinks background in the poverty stricken communities of Brazil, using native produced ingredients.

As we already know the spirit used is cachaça, so I should probably give you a little more info on this surprisingly uncommon (in the UK at least) spirit.

Cachaça (ka-SHAH-sa) is made from fresh-pressed cane juice fermented and distilled, and can only come from Brazil. Interestingly, despite being the third most consumed spirit in the world the USA has laws defining all sugar based spirits as Rum, so cachaça imported into the US must have the label ‘rum’ somewhere on it – brands get around this using the moniker ‘Brazilian Rum’. There is a growing campaign to ‘Legalize Cachaça’, asking the trade bureau to recognise the spirit as separate to rum (an almost insulting idea as cachaça predates rum by well over 100 years).

Sagatiba is probably the most common cachaça in the UK at the moment, however my eye has been caught by Leblon, not least due to the wide and varied selection of innovative cocktails showcased on their site. Their cachaça was awarded a Gold Medal at the Annual San Francisco World Spirits Competition in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, a 5-consecutive-year run, which is a first for any cachaça. It was also named "Top Cachaça" by a judging panel of influential spirits industry professionals in the U.S. Not bad for a brand that was only formed in 2005!

And for those of you that like the tasting notes...

‘Leblon traps a tequila-like nose with transparent fruity and herbal notes and undertones of vanilla. The full-bodied palate is smooth with complex layers of citrus, vanilla, pepper and the most subtle oak. For such a lively spirit, the warm, velvety finish is a lasting surprise.'

So there you have it, a simple summer cocktail straight from Brazil into your lovely minds via me. On a separate note, I’ll be back in Edinburgh in less than 48 hours, meaning I can get back in the bar and taking pictures for you! Till next time...

Much Love,

Tom x

Ps. Whilst reading up for this article I learned that in 1808 the capital of Portugal was in fact... Rio De Janeiro. Which is in Brazil. Follow the link for a big long historical explanation courtesy of Wikipedia.