Scoop: Abelha Cachaça -- A Transatlantic Cachaça In The Works

Abelha Cachaca Gold, Silver and John
Originally uploaded by Abelha Cachaça

I became aware of Abelha by way of Flickr and struck up an email conversation with one of its responsible parties, Anthony Goh in London.

Right now, it's a hobby project that he's pursuing with a buddy of his while they both work at day jobs.

As of today, here are the facts as I know them:

• The farm is in Bahia, near Chapada Diamantinha
• Two varieties -- one clear/unaged and another aged for three years in 250L garapeira barrels
• Small-batch copper still process

Abelha also claims to practice completely organic farming methods, and even teach the small collective of cane-harvesting farmers (for free) how to farm organically. Of course, as I've said before, human-rights and sustainability factors will likely become an increasingly important selection variable for cachaça.

Abelha also holds a particular distaste for how some cachaça brands go for hot-chicks-and-beaches stereotypes in their marketing. (Evidently, Chicago wasn't so happy about one particular approach, for example.)

"We believe in doing business with good social and environmental conscience, but don't want to sound preachy all the time," Anthony points out. "We are just selling booze after all!"

Their home page isn't up yet, so I hope that there's more information to come. For now, here's a slideshow:

Stay tuned.

Comments

[anthony]

Hey Phil, how are you doing?
We've finally put a basic website live now at www.abelha.co.uk
Hope you're well.

tchau, Anthony