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2	Spice Cachaça: The spirit of Brazil. read more...
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BUENA VIDA

Spice

Cachaça:
The Spirit of Brasil

Sultry and strong, cachaça is enjoying a surge in popularity these days,
turning the trendy caipirinha into today’s cosmopolitan.

Story and photos
By Mark Holston

Next to the sound of samba, few things so quickly evoke the authentic spirit of Brazil as the refreshing, lime-accented flavor of the country’s signature cocktail, the caipirinha. Similar to the Cuban mojito but more bracing, the caipirinha is fueled not by white rum but by cachaça, a beverage that is virtually omnipresent in Brazil and deeply ingrained in that exotic land’s national culture.
While cachaça has long enjoyed popularity in Europe and in Brazil’s neighboring South American countries, its acceptance in the U.S. was slow to develop. In recent years, however, the caipirinha has become one of the country’s most fashionable cocktails, and a growing legion of cachaça aficionados is beginning to experiment with expensive, sipping quality varieties of the beverage. The explosion of interest in cachaça has been accompanied by such inventive marketing ploys as the one launched last year when a firm named its high-end product Cane after the short-lived CBS television drama starring Jimmy Smits.
Recently, an imported brand trumpeted the idea that the caipirinha should be dubbed “The Cocktail of the 2008 Recession” because, as it said jokingly in a release, “who knows how to muddle through an economic crisis better than the Brazilians?”
Those largely unfamiliar with Brazil’s fiery national drink will be surprised to learn that, just behind vodka and soju, a Korean beverage distilled from rice, cachaça is the third most consumed alcoholic spirit in the world. While aged versions of some limited production brands fetch as much as $200 a bottle, the average Brazilian spends but a few dollars to satisfy an insatiable appetite for their country’s fabled firewater.
Amazingly, as many as 30,000 different officially recognized brands of cachaça exist in the Brazilian marketplace. Close to 1.4 billion liters of the beverage are produced annually—virtually all of it consumed in Brazil, with exports accounting for only about 1 percent of the total production. One statistician calculated that up to 100 million shots are downed every single day by cachaça-crazed Brazilians.
Although of humble origins, cachaça is today being afforded a stature that was out of its reach for almost five centuries. Thanks to a recent presidential decree, the drink has been proclaimed the country’s official alcoholic beverage, giving it the level of distinction that tequila has long enjoyed as an internationally recognized symbol of Mexican culture.
The decree also confirms Brazil’s legal right to the exclusive use the term “cachaça,” following steps that France took years ago to establish its domain over “cognac” as an identity. It also preempts the potential for the kind of diplomatic row that has erupted between Peru and Chile over who has the official right to use the word “pisco”—a popular brandy claimed by both lands.
In the U.S., such mass produced brands as Pitú and Cachaça 51 are the most readily available and perfectly acceptable for use in making a caipirinha. For sipping purposes, however, the true connoisseur will want to seek out slightly more expensive hand-crafted brands as Vamos Nessa and Terra Vermelha, a 100-percent organically produced cachaça that has been certified by the USDA and is said to be virtually hangover proof. Expect to pay between $20 and $30 for a bottle of cachaça that invites being enjoyed straight-up.
Brazil’s best brands of artisan cachaça come from limited production alambiques (distilleries) that are hidden in the country’s verdant mountain valleys, often using the age-old tradition of stream-powered waterwheels to press juice from stalks of freshly cut sugar cane. The fermentation process takes only a few days, and most cachaça is aged but for a week or less. Technically a sugar cane brandy, it is often compared to rum but differs in a fundamental way—most rum is made from molasses, a byproduct sugar production, while the single ingredient of cachaça is sugar cane juice.

Caipirinha Formula: Perfect in its Simplicity

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 lime, cut into small pieces
2 Tbsps. granulated sugar
2 ozs. cachaça.
Crushed ice

Preparation:
Place the lime pieces in an old-fashioned glass and sprinkle the sugar on top. The lime and sugar should be muddled with a pestle before the glass filled with ice and the all-important cachaça of choice added. After a vigorous shaking, the cocktail is ready to be savored.
And, remember: It’s much more than just another summery treat. It is, in every way, the very heart and soul of this one-of-a-kind pais tropical.