Cachaçagora - Cachaça, Caipirinha, And Cocktails

Thoughts on the Sagatiba Sale

This week, in the midst of an earnings announcement that proved that people will find money for a drink in a crappy economy, drinks giant Gruppo Campari announced that it is buying Sagatiba for $26 million. Campari was Sagatiba's distributor in Latin America. 

As I've been telling cachaça marketers for some time now: If you can't figure out how to make cachaça a world-class category by 2014 (Brazil's hosting of the World Cup) or 2016 (the Olympics), then please, for the love of God, find another career. Global spirits companies like Campari have the resources to see what the possible opportunities are, especially as all eyes will be fixed upon Brazil over the balance of this decade. I hope this means that they'll put some strong marketing muscle behind the category. 

As readers know, I find Sagatiba Pura good-not-great though I think that Velha shows great promise. Preçiosa? Never tried it, though the prices it has fetched at auction have been the source of some entertainment.

One thing is for sure: I spend a good part of my day job talking about the importance of having the right brand ambassador in an increasingly networked world, and Sagatiba's John Gakuru is without a doubt the hardest working one I know.

Now... Is there going to be a Sagatiba Calendar? :)

Don't worry, ladies. The good folks at Campari have Benico del Toro for you.

Top photo credit: Wellington Silva

Sagatiba Featured on Drink Spirits

Sagatiba's John Gakuru is, inarguably, one of the hardest-working cachaça evangelists working today. (And, sweet Buddha on a big-ass biscuit, easily among the most well-traveled!) 

Drink Spirits has a great feature on Sagatiba, which includes one of John's drinks in particular:

Rio Bravo

• 1/2 inch square piece of ginger diced
• 1 oz Orgeat (Trader Tiki Syrup)
• 1 oz Lime juice
• 2 oz Sagatiba Pura cachaça

Combine the ingredients and then shake, strain and serve up. Garnish with an orange peel.

I'm expecting further cachaca explorations from Drink Spirits:

One of the things we enjoy the most about running Drink Spirits is the opportunity to discover and share new things. Cachaça is exactly the kind of spirit we started this site to cover. It’s one not too many people are familiar with and it’s exceptionally enjoyable. Enjoying spirits is a journey and cachaça is a great stop that we heartily recommend.

Update 2010-05-24: Drink name corrected.

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.

Cocktail Recipe: The Barbary Flip

I love it here in Chicago, but this recipe here looks like yet another reason to sorely miss the Bay Area (even though I was always more of an East Bay kid than the San Francisco type).

This recipe is the official cocktail of the third annual San Francisco Cocktail Week, created by Duggan McDonnell. Duggan is one of the event's organizers and helms the Esquire lauded Cantina on Sutter Street.

Tip o' the hat to SFist.com:

The Barbary Flip

• 1 ounce Sagatiba Velha Cachaça
• 3/4 ounce Skyy Infusions Pineapple vodka
• 1/2 ounce Benedictine
• 1 ounce fresh lime juice
• 1 fresh egg white
• Driscoll Farms strawberry slice and Angostura bitters, for garnish.

Combine cachaça, vodka, Benedictine, lime juice, and egg white in an ice-filled shaker and shake for 20 to 30 seconds, or until well chilled. Strain through a fine strainer into a chilled Champagne coupe glass, and garnish with a thinly sliced Driscoll Farms strawberry that has been doused with Angostura bitters.

Four Cocktail Recipe Videos From Sagatiba

Sagatiba has some drink recipes courtesy of Marko Knezevic and Angelo Vieira.

• Sagatiba Spring Caipirinha
• Fresh Mary
• Samba-tini
• Porto Alegre

Out of all of these, I'm most intrigued by the Porto Alegre, which uses Campari.

Spring Caipirinha

Fresh Mary

Samba-tini

Porto Alegre

What Is "Sagatiba?"

Their marketing literature tells us that "Sagatiba" means "The Infinite Saga."

Obviously, most people are far more interested in getting to the bottom of a glass of their product than the mystery behind its name. Sagatiba seems to know this too, hence these three ads.

Boca Loca Launches At London's Made In Brasil

Here's a brief slideshow of Boca Loca's recent launch at Made In Brasil. RumFest founder Ian Burrell was in attendance.

Restaurant reviews:

Trusted Places

Made In Brasil is an authentic cachacaria, which is Brazilian for House of Cachaca; a place where you can find all types of Cachaca (sugar cane rum). With over seventy on offer, these can be enjoyed straight, with coke or as a Caipirinha.

ViewLondon

The most traditional cachaca drink, a Caipirinha – where a healthy measure of the spirit is mixed with fresh lime, sugar and crushed ice – is the most popular option, but the bar offers a vast array of variations on this theme, including the banana or the staff-recommended chilli-raspberry versions.

Their cocktail menu (PDF) currently features Sagatiba heavily.

Booze Muse On The State Of Cachaça In The U.S.

There's a great, comprehensive wrap-up piece over at Booze Muse about the state of cachaça in the U.S. The article focuses on the efforts of several brands to elevate our favorite spirit from its perception as a cheap, rough, engine-cleaner of a drink to a premium category.

Today, however, cachaça is reaching a more refined audience thanks to the efforts of a handful of dedicated companies that have done a lot to bring the spirit to a higher level. “Cachaça is today in the same position that vodka, chianti and tequila were about fifteen years ago,” explains Steve Luttman, producer of Leblon, one of the more recent brands specially created for the international market. “The images of these three categories were dramatically changed in quality and presentation via Absolut or Grey Goose for vodka, Antinori for chianti and El Patron for tequila—each of these brought a better product to the market with much superior sales and marketing.”

In addition to Leblon's Luttmann, the piece quotes representatives from Cabana, Ypióca, Sagatiba, and Beleza Pura.

Leblon On Artisanal Cachaça

Leblon has a video about industrial versus artisanal cachaça or, as it's often referred to here, "cachaça de alambique". For those unfamiliar with the differences, it's a must-watch and definitely worth six minutes of your time.

Photo Credit: Leticia Gomes

I actually met Paulo Magoulas (above) at a meeting of the Confraria de Cachaça do Copo Furado this past July. His explanation of the the key differences between the two production methods starts about a minute and forty seconds into the video. He's credited here as the president of the Brazilian Cachaça Academy in Rio. 

As I recounted in an early post about my rating system, a wine journalist once told me that, at the end of the day, there were just three kinds of wine: "Good", "sucks", and "more please." If a producer that uses industrial methods creates something that pleases the palate, I don't much care whether they distilled the thing in a column still, pot still, or neighbor's kitchen sink.

(Okay... I'll admit... I'd care a little if it came from the sink.)

That said, what a distiller gains in volume he generally loses in control over the product, as well as overall character.

Sagatiba clearly sees a market for products produced in either fashion. Its Pura brand uses the industrial column-still method, while Velha uses the artisanal pot-still technique. Luxury Experience has the details.

I gave Pura a three-and-a-half-barrel rating, so I certainly didn't think it was a terrible result of industrial techniques. I still stand by my contention, however, that a lot of personality got distilled out of it. (I compared it to how "good" vodkas are supposed to kind of "disappear" into a mixer, which is a pretty terrible way to look at your craft if you happen to make vodka for a living.) A Pura-based caipirinha certainly isn't the "mortal sin" that Paulo says one commits by mixing with an industrial cachaça. (I save the "mortal sin" designation for folks who sneak from my cachaça stash.)

(Sidenote: I haven't yet gotten around to Velha, but the samples have been staring at me from the counter for months now.)

In any case, taste what you like. I won't judge. *8-)

Videos From Sagatiba's Battle Of The Bars, Toronto

Caught this series on Sagatiba's YouTube channel: A "Battle Of The Bars" delivered in nine segments.

Described by the emcee as "a cocktail competition like Vancouver has never seen," representatives from nine bars try to impress six judges with their own Sagatiba creations.

Watch Part One as the contestants "shake, muddle, and pour their way into the judges hearts." (Oh, stop. I report it as I see and hear it.)

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