It's a long-ish story of how the bottle came to be in my possession (involving dropping in unannounced at Cabana's PR firm), but Cabana found me and gave me a bottle for review.
If all you know of the brand is what you see in their infamous ads, I know that a lot of you really want to hate Cabana Cachaça.
Of course, that would mean that our country's puritans and knee-jerk protestniks would be missing out. Cabana Cachaça is actually quite good — very crisp and smooth, though with a somewhat unique-but-not-overpowering sharpness in the finish. (They certainly employ some of the craft methods that I find characteristic of some of my favorite cachaças thus far — small-batch distillation and aging in jequitibá rosa barrels.)
The zillion-dollar question: Is Cabana the super-premium cachaça they're marketing it as? I'm taking a wait-and-see. The U.S. is still searching for its "Grey Goose" or "Patrón" of cachaça. Cabana, from its marketing to the bottle design, is definitely aiming in that direction.
Like with Leblon, I'm curious as to whether Cabana will be introducing a... umm... let's call it a super-duper-premium cachaça? Further, at US$34.99 a bottle, are they pricing themselves out of the range where cocktail economics carry volume? (I'd imagine a Cabana caipirinha ain't cheap.) Having introduced a product with their amp turned to the mythical "eleven" setting, where do you go from here?
You can always tune in here if-or-when the answer presents itself.
Until then... Four barrels.
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