Cachaçagora - Cachaça, Caipirinha, And Cocktails

Cachaça Featured at MyNewOrleans

There's a fun exploration of cachaça from someone apparently new to quality product over at MyNewOrleans.Com:

The 12 cachaças of various labels and quality levels that I tasted were within a broad range of flavors and aromas. At the lower end, they were like cheap vodka: hot, very little flavor and pretty difficult to appreciate. I noted that these would be fine in mixed drinks as the addition of fruit juice, sugar or citrus would mask the savage qualities. 

But in the better products, both younger and older in age, the cachaça took on a more interesting, complicated, layered quality. Notice I did not say “subtle.” Cachaças are not shy, and these higher-priced products were quite forward. Yet, they were darned interesting and really delightful. The discovery process was a fine journey. 

 Read more over at MyNewOrleans.

Fox Concepts' Mark Barreto on Cachaça

As featured in the Phoenix New Times:

Best drink you've ever had?

Caipirinha, the national drink of Brazil! Its made with cachaça, which comes from Brazil and I used to not be able to get it here, but its now carried at places like Total Wine. Cachaça is made from fresh sugarcane, its fermented and aged in oak barrels. Mix it with sugar, fresh lime and ice -then muddle and shake it for a Caipirinha.

Reason.TV on "The New War Against Classic Mixed Drinks"

One of the most innovative cachaca cocktails I've thus far encountered is the Pinga, created by Paul McGee of The Whistler in Chicago. Among the ingredients: Egg white, which is made extra-frothy thanks to McGee's innovation of throwing a broken-off spring from a hawthorn strainer into the shaker. 

I have no doubt that McGee's creation is, while not exactly healthful, nevertheless safe to consume and enjoy. Multiple times if possible. 

Of course, you can leave it to busybodies to try to get between me and a favorite drink. 

Over in NYC, it appears some regulators might take a dim view of Mr. McGee's creation and similar ones that use egg whites. I pray they don't look westward. 

Reason.TV is on the case:

Despite warnings printed on the menu, and raw egg white listed in the ingredients, a health inspector busted a bartender for failing to verbally inform a customer of the risky ingredient. Pegu Club had to yank the Earl Grey MarTEAni from the menu, restoring it only after the health department backed off serious penalties and a court summons.

One thing that New York and Chicago have in common is that their politicians have rarely encountered an unnecessarily intrusive regulations that they haven't liked. Having failed to deprive us of the pleasures of beer, wine, and spirits, our regulators are finding new and increasingly insidious ways to step in front of responsible consumption. 

Watch the video. 

Saving the Caipirinha

Credit: Lady Wasabi

In November 2008, I pointed readers to Brazil's caipirinha law, which sought to strictly "set standards for identity and quality" of the national cocktail by requiring that only cachaça, sugar, and lime be used.

The Guardian now tells us that Leblon has taken this up as its latest cause as the Brazil-market counterpart to the Legalize Cachaça campaign. 

"We formally declare that we no longer wish to see our caipirinha being made with vodka or sake instead of cachaça," reads the campaign manifesto, the brainchild of the Cachaça Leblon brand. "We do not accept that this drink, which is famous and respected around the world, be disrespected in Brazil." 

Fair enough. In my original post, I looked askance at the law as yet another example of regulators-gone-wild. I still think that marketers, more than government, should take the lead here. 

What this effort shouldn't discourage is the use of the basic elements of the caipirinha (alcohol, sweetener, fruit) as a mixology test bench. Define a "caipirinha" as cachaça, sugar, and lime, yes... but don't mess with my Succubus Kiss Caipirinha.

CNBC on Cachaça

The business media loves a horserace, so this CNBC article is worth a read:

Several cachaça brands have been working hard to promote the category, educating consumers about the spirit, and doing outreach with bartenders and restaurateurs to teach them how to incorporate it in cocktails and on menus.

Create the "Magnificent Bastard" Cocktail, Win a $500 Shopping Spree at Kegworks

I know a fair amount of you like to enter or at least follow cocktail contests, so here's one with a $500 prize on the line from Magnificent Bastard.

From the contest entry page:

While crowd-sourcing is typically employed in the pursuit of esoteric and/or trivial projects, like developing new kinds of software or analyzing unwieldy piles of data, there's no reason it can't be used for something truly useful, like inventing a new cocktail. You send in your recipes, we judge them. The winning entry will get a $500 shopping spree at KegWorks.com, along with all the glory that will surely come with giving the world a great new balm to toast its triumphs, ease its setbacks, seal its deals, and enliven its slow days at the office.

The mind races with the possible ingredients that would go into a cocktail called a "Magnificent Bastard". 

I might enter. Just wondering what I'd use as the "bastard" to complement the magnificence of the cachaça. Personally, I think that approach will be the key to a win. Boning up on Embury's Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, which MB references, might help as well.

Cuca Fresca Cocktail Contest Finale

Tuesday night was the finale of Cuca Fresca's Shake Your Way to Brazil cocktail contest, which I've been following with great interest. As fortune would have it, the contest took place just a couple of miles away from Cachaçagora's world headquarters, over at Chicago's Encore Liquid Lounge.

My trusty Flipcam and I were in attendance, at least for a little while. Video below, with the five finalist recipes, plus the grand prize winner, after the jump.

Update (2009-12-06; 1240): Another perspective on the event from Suburban Kamikaze.

Update (2009-12-06; 1345): Check out this piece in The Examiner. Money quote for Cuca Fresca: "Sean Ludford, another of the Shake Off’s judges who has judged over fifty cocktail competitions, also said 'this was the most impressive line-up of cocktails that I have ever seen in a comparable competition.'"

Sagatiba's John Gakuru at Alcademics

Photo Credit: Petite Poupée7

During my day job and in the course of writing this blog, I can tell you that few brand ambassadors are as passionate (or well-traveled! Christ!) as Sagatiba's John Gakuru.

Recently, his space/time-continuum-bending itinerary took him to my old stomping grounds of the San Francisco Bay Area. Camper English caught up with him at the Palace Hotel.

Worth a read, especially if you've ever been curious about Sagatiba's three products (Pura, Velha, and the near mythical Preciosa) that the relationship (or not) between them.

From the "What's the Point?" Department

An entertaining interview with Jimmy Zanon of Denver's Lola:

What is the weirdest drink someone has asked you to make?

Virgin caiparinha [sic]. I think a lot of people don't get that the spirit in a cocktail is there for a reason and is an integral part of the drink. Without the cachaca, a caiparinha is just lime and sugar, and doesn't make for a very good non-alcoholic drink.

Pssst... Hey... Wanna Buy A Cachaça Distillery, Farm?

Photo Credit: Souza Tassini Imoveis

There's one on the market, with a Web site to match:

An artisanal cachaça distillery, selling for R$1.5 million [USD$795,335 according to Google at the time of this writing] with about a hundred and twenty thousand liters worth of top notch Brazilian cachaça waiting in storage tanks ready to be bottled and labled on site and sent to market to be sold alongside the best of Brazil.  The property is located in a beautiful tourist region and includes roughly 13 hectares or about 30 acres of production land, sugar cane crops, and a beautiful owner’s home.