It’s no wonder that the most beloved and certainly the most famous cocktail in Brazil is the delicious and refreshing caipirinha.
But where does this drink come from? What are its origins? Caipirinha is a very simple cocktail with one main ingredient: cachaça.
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And it is with cachaça that the story begins.
Cachaça is a brandy distilled from fermented sugar cane juice. It can be consumed neat, on the rocks or as a substitute for rum in many cocktails: the Cuba Libre, Mojito, Daquiri, to name a few.
Cachaça is often confused with rum because both spirits are derived from sugar cane; however, they are surprisingly different. Rum is usually made from molasses, a syrupy, dark brown byproduct created during the sugar refining process. Cachaça, on the other hand, is made from the freshly squeezed juice of sugar cane, called a grape, and contains nothing else. Cachaça undergoes a purer refining process and is aged in vats of aromatic native Brazilian woods (amburana, jequitibá, tapinhoã), unlike rum, which is often aged in oak barrels.
PRESCRIPTION:
A caipirinha cocktail is surprisingly easy to make.
The recipe is as follows:
Squashed lime slices in a glass with two tablespoons of white sugar, ice cubes and a shot of cachaça.
Mix well and enjoy!
Cachaça has been around in Brazil since the 16th century, but when was the caipirinha invented?
Although there are many theories about how the drink was created, one of which suggests that a variation of the drink was used to help cure the Spanish flu epidemic in the early 20th century, the original recipe probably contained garlic, honey, lemon, and other strong natural substances.a variation of which is still used to this day to help cure the common cold.
And for the non-medicinal version, the cocktail’s balance of sweetness and tartness (plus the contrast of cold versus Brazilian heat) really set off the flavor of the cocktail.