Friday, October 22, 2010

Wtf is Cachaça?

Short answer: cachaça is like rum, but from Brazil.

Long answer: you knew I would give you the long answer, didn't you?


First things first: how in the world does one say "cachaça"? For a long time (I am now embarrassed to think about this) I pronounced this word as "kuh-CHAH-kuh", and nobody corrected me because apparently no one else I know knows how to pronounce it, either. Finally, for this blog post, I consulted that greatest of all authorities, the internet. I've always said that Portuguese is like Spanish, but smooshier, and the word "cachaça" is no exception. Turns out the little thing that looks like a 5 under the last c (it's called a "cedille") alerts you that the c is a soft sound, so the word is actually pronounced "ka-SHAH-suh". Which will make you sound very sexy. Or, just like you have a lisp. Try this out early in the morning, when your sleepy voice is operating at a nice alto. (Or bass, or whatever. Does this happen to anyone else? I swear my voice is like an octave lower for about an hour after I wake up.) Ka-SHAH-suh. Ka-SHAH-suh. Kashahsuh. Kashahsuhhhh.

Kashahsuhhh is the third most consumed spirit in the world, because there are a lot of people in Brazil, and they like to drink. (The first and second are vodka - because there are a lot of people in Russia, and they really like to drink - and soju/shochu, an Asian spirit distilled from rice. (Which I have never, ever heard of, which probably means it will be the Next Big Thing on the cocktail scene.)) Cachaça differs from rum in that it's distilled from fresh sugarcane, whereas most rum is distilled from molasses. Molasses is a by-product of sugar production - it's what's left after the refineries boil the cane juice as much as possible to extract all the sugar crystals, because sugar producers are greedy bastards.


A great deal of cachaça is consumed in the form of caipirinhas. The caipirinha (kai-pur-EEN-ya - another sexy, unpronounceable word) is the national drink of Brazil. It's made of: lime, sugar, and cachaça. That's all. So, you might think - if cachaça is brazilian for rum, and a caipirinha is just cachaça, lime, and sugar - isn't that just a mojito, without the mint? I once thought this, too. And I was wrong.

See, because of the whole being distilled from fresh sugarcane juice thing, cachaça (according to the leblon cachaça website) has a "fruitier, fresher nose" and "distinctive vegetal notes remniscent of tequila". Well, I don't know what a nose is supposed to taste like, but I think this calls for...a taste test!

First the smell:
Rum: sweet, boozy, clean.
Cachaça: it smells like tequila. That's what I keep thinking of.

Then the taste:
Rum: Probably my $12 bottle of Baccardi was not really intended for sipping. But here are my impressions: Sweet, warm, almost like baked goods. Nice alcohol burn. This is hard liquor, after all.
Cachaça: Starts out sweet, like the rum, and then explodes into a whole bouquet of...something. (I'm seriously thinking about becoming a sommelier, if only to enlarge my vocabulary to describe taste sensations.) A bit smoky, a bit vegetal - it doesn't taste quite like tequila, but it's got that little extra something that makes tequila not quite as well-behaved as the other liquors. It's rich, robust, and unabashed. Like rum, but...manlier.

Lastly, because your cachaça education would not be complete without it, I give you...the caipirinha.

To start: take a lime and slice the ends off. Cut it in half, and remove the pith from the middle. (This part is bitter, so removing it will make for a sweeter drink.)
Cut the halved lime into four slices, and put them in a glass, along with two teaspoons of superfine sugar.
I once thought superfine sugar and powdered sugar were the same thing, but...I was wrong. Superfine sugar will dissolve completely, giving you a nice translucent caipirinha, whereas powdered sugar will dissolve but make the drink cloudy. I used powdered sugar. Don't tell anyone.

Muddle the limes and sugar together until the limes are juiced. Fill the glass with crushed ice -
And add 2 oz of cachaça. Give it a couple of good stirs, and you're ready to start savoring.

Verdict: The lime is a good compliment to the unusual taste of the cachaça. Not quite like a margarita, not quite like a mojito...you may just have to try it for yourself.

14 comments:

  1. Caipirinhas are one of my favorite drinks. :-) I knew about cachaca but did not know about super-fine sugar.
    It was great seeing you last night. Thanks for the blog address - this site is super-fun!

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  2. Powdered sugar stays cloudy because it usually has cornstarch, wheat flour, or calcium phosphate added to prevent caking :).

    I actually like to go the opposite way, and use unrefined Turbinado sugar. The big crystals really grind into the lime peel, and you can still taste the cane juice.

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  3. Love Caipirinhas! Live in Thailand so tried my first here...it stayed with me so make mine with rough organic sugar, not white but slightly brown, in fact love that the crystals take time to dissolve and for stirring after muddleing - I use the chunkier part of lemon grass - works very well and always gets people talking! Yeah yeah I hear your comments coming..."Boy they must be bored in Thailand", "What? they don't have spoons there" ok guys I asked for it, just try ok?!
    Also...confession: I have been pronouncing the rum "casca" and no one corrected me either - in fact trying to get it once and for all - that's how I found this blog, Thanks! Sofia

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  4. Recommend you don't use powdered sugar unless it's all you've got on hand and you're too lazy to go to the store.Purists use organic, pure cane sugar for best results. The citric acid and water from the limes quickly dissolves the sugar when muddled.

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  5. I recommend you find a brazilian restaurant or neighborhood in your town to find out some good brands of cachaça that are available there. 51, pitú, and the like are super cheap in brazil ($2-8) and come with equally good hangovers if you aren't careful (and you won't be careful with a caipirinha, so good).

    None are going to be Brazil cheap, but you might as well go good over cheap. If you thought a rum or tequila hangover was bad, combine the two.

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  6. This is a great post. Thanks for the infos. Originally considered a drink for the poor, cachaça is becoming more and more popular with the Brazilian elites and also gaining quite a few fans abroad. Today there are more than 4000 Cachaça distilleries in Brazil, most producing artisanal, high quality Cachaças that rarely make it to the international market. I love cachaça and caipirinhas made with high quality cachaças. I have written quite a few posts about this amazing drink and would like to invite you all to check it out here: http://www.caipirinharecipes.com/category/cachaca/
    There you can also find recipes for great caipirinhas and the official list of the top 50 cachaças produced in Brazil this year.

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  7. the world's most popular liquor is actually baiju,
    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-the-most-popular-liquor-in-the-world-2015-10-02

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  8. Great article about kai-pur-EEN-ya. We also
    have a nice blog about Cachaça. Have a look Cheers =)
    cachacabartolomeu/blog

    ReplyDelete
  9. Great article about kai-pur-EEN-ya. We also
    have a nice blog about Cachaça. Have a look Cheers =)
    www.cachacabartolomeu/blog

    ReplyDelete
  10. Loved this read. But usually we (brazilians) don't fuss about how we cut up the lime... only bartenders do, maybe. We always use regular, common white sugar, refined. We just use the same sugar one would use for baking which is usually refined. No one would complain though if you used unrefined white sugar, but I've never seen a brazilian use the superfine flour-like sugar I see sometimes sprinkled over pasties and cakes. And surely no one uses brown sugar. Also you gotta have a good instrument for crushing down your lime chunks, like a little pestle thing. Ahh and also we use only white cachaça for caipirinhas, becauae nobody would waste a good aged (yellow) cahaça on a drink. And it would taste weird because yellow cachaça has herb-ish smells and well, suppose its okay if you only got the yellow one at home though.

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  11. This is some very cool information! Thank you so much! Gotta try this!

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  12. so the word is actually pronounced "ka-SHAH-suh" Wrong Wrong. If you say it like that you ate calling someone "bighead" in portuguese. so the word is actually pronounced "ka-SHAH-sah"

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  13. nope... Cachaça isn't like rum. it's more like tequila, but 3x better

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