Cachaçagora - Cachaça, Caipirinha, And Cocktails

Cachaçagora: A Half-Year In Review, Looking Toward 2009

I'm a little more than six months into the grand public experiment I call Cachaçagora. I figure that it might be of interest to my readers if I share what I've observed this far.

Search Matters

Relative search volume for "cachaca" or "cachaça" in the United States, 2004 - 2008. Source: Google Insights for Search

Bartenders, look at the chart above. Your customers are searching for cachaça more now than in the past five years.

Another look at the chart shows that, in terms of U.S. search trends, the online interest in cachaça is at an all-time seasonal high. In fact, the trough of the seasonal search trend is about as high as the peak for past years, as the red line indicates.

It's fair to say that the degree to which people are inspired to search for something is the degree to which they're interested in something. If your bar hasn't started stocking cachaça and you haven't learned how to make a few cocktails with it, the time is now.

(And I happen to know of a site that does an okay job of tracking these things. Jus' sayin'...)

Brands Matter

The importance of brands has made itself known in my Google Analytics account, which I use to divine online cachaça interest by way of accesses to this site.

Half of the top ten search terms that people used to get to Cachaçagora were brands: Abelha (my first scoop!), Cabana, Leblon, Sagatiba, and Ypióca.

Six out of Cachaçagora's top ten most-accessed pages (not including the home page) featured brands: The category pages for Leblon, Sagatiba, and Ypióca, plus the reviews for Leblon, Sagatiba Pura, and Ypióca 160.

Personality Matters

The all-time most popular Cachaçagora post in a single day was the interview with Jeffrey Morgenthaler. This shouldn't be a surprise, really. In fact, to tell you the truth, it tells me that Cachaçagora has been a lot of "inside baseball" up to this point — I should really be interviewing more bartenders and sharing their experiences. (My wonderful graphic-designer wife has made some nifty leave-behind cards, which I plan on depositing on bartenders both in Chicago and around the world.)

Moving Forward

So, all of this gives me some ideas for what you can expect from Cachaçagora in 2009:

• If you are a bartender doing interesting things with cachaça, I want to hear from you. So do my readers. All that I ask is that you disclose any affiliations or brand relationships you may have.
• Look forward to more reviews as new products come out and I discover older ones. I've got at least five in draft form as I write this.
• As this site gets bigger, trying to navigate via the category links becomes less and less effective. So I've installed a Google Custom Search box for Cachaçagora in the right-hand margin.
• Going to try to get more updates from the in-laws in Rio. After all, my father-in-law's reaction to the first blind tasting got more play than the tasting itself!

Wishing all of you a great 2009!

New Year's 2009 Casualties

They will be remembered...

We think...

Repeal Day Is Today

My interview with Jeffrey Morgenthaler introduced me to the concept of Repeal Day — a day when we Americans should take some time to celebrate the end of so-called "Great Experiment" of Prohibition.

Of course, the Libertarian in me wholeheartedly supports any holiday that commemorates the rare instance when government meddling into American lives was turned back.

By the time many of you read this, I will be on a plane. Have a caipirinha or five for me.

In the meantime, some related links:

• "The Lessons Of Prohibition", Reason
• "Celebrating Cinco de Drinko", The Wall Street Journal
• "New Orleans bars celebrate the 75th anniversary of Prohibition's repeal", The Times-Picayune
• "Should We Celebrate Repeal Day?", KVAL
• "Champagne at the signing of the 21st Amendment", Cocktailiana
• "Repeal Day Playlist", A Dash Of Bitters

Traveling In The Middle East This Week

There will be few if any updates this week, as I'm in Dubai on business. Cachaça-related postings will resume once I return. Cheers!

Labor Day Weekend Cachaça Math

Some interesting math...

One figure you hear quite often is that there are 1.3 billion liters of cachaça produced in Brazil every year.

You also hear that only a fraction-of-a-percent of those 1.3 billion liters is exported.

Generously assuming that Brazil exports a cool 1%, that would mean 1,287,000,000 liters of cachaça produced within the country per annum.

Assuming this supply isn't too far in excess of demand, that suggests Brazilians consume this much cachaça in a year.

Now, according to Wikipedia, Brazil's estimated population in 2008 will be 189,600,000.

Divide estimated population into annual cachaça production and you get 6.79 liters of cachaça for every man, woman, and child in Brazil!

Seems an unfair burden. I think we can help. Who's with me!?!

Headed To São Paulo

No, I'm not indulging in spontaneous alcotourism. I've been planning a business trip to São Paulo since early May.

Updates will be pretty slim, as the folks there promise a pretty packed schedule. However, I do plan on attending (if virtually) "Cocktailnerd" Gabriel's chat session about all things "rum" which, much like your local liquor store, includes cachaça.

Fear not, though. I do plan to sample the local cachaças and report back.

Some Online Marketing Thoughts For Cachaça Makers

So, I'm not quite one month into the grand experiment I call Cachaçagora, but I'm nevertheless moved to write about the experience so far.

I'd have to say that the project has been quite illuminating. Furthermore, I was quite pleasantly surprised that a few cachaça makers were looking hard enough that they actually found me at this early stage! At every point, even those times when we disagreed, the correspondence has been thoughtful, meaningful, rewarding, and conducive to developing mutual understanding.

Maybe this is the "day's residue" of my day job creeping in, but I've been thinking about some easy-lift ideas that would help cachaça makers with their online marketing and, in turn, help us work together to educate the northern hemisphere about the virtues of our favorite distilled spirit. More after the jump.

Out For A Few Days

Postings to resume sometime over the weekend. Cheers!

A Linguist On How To Pronounce "Cachaça"

From a no doubt cunning linguistics student at the University Of Montana, quoting from Cigar Aficionado:

The first is hard, the second is the soft blend of "ch" as in "chagrin," and the third is a combination of "s" and "z" like the "c" in "facade": ka-SHAH-sa.

A Few Notes About My Upcoming Reviews

While in Brazil on my most recent trip, my in-laws had me sample various cachaças from the family stash. (And it is quite a stash.) I had very different impressions of each.

Before I share those impressions, a little background...

Before starting a decade in Silicon Valley PR, I was an intern at Brown-Miller Communications, a boutique PR shop in Martinez, Calif. The clients at the time included the Livermore Valley Winegrowers' Association, the California Tomato Growers' Association, the Cling Peach Advisory Board, Gills Onions, and others.

At a wine-related event, I asked someone how they developed their palate. I was intimidated at the time by the mellifluous prose that waxed rhapsodic about "raspberry undertones", "hints of blackcurrant", or a "crisp finish".

"At the end of the day, there are only three kinds of wine," I was told. 'Good', 'Sucks', and 'More Please.'"

I never forgot it.

I can only hope to share my impressions of the cachaças I've sampled, with the thought that my tastes aren't so coarse as to be useless. Since my in-laws are quite involved in the community of cachaça aficionados in Rio, I hope to share my experiences with various labels that we may never see in the U.S.

So here's my one-to-five rating system:

• Five barrels: Baptize your kid with this. Immediately.
• Four barrels: This should be in your special stash. Hide it from your uncle and the guy who keeps wanting to borrow your truck.
• Three barrels: Decent.
• Two barrels: Almost guaranteed to turn into a four-barrel-rated cachaça after the third one. Cocktail-mixture is absolutely essential.
• One barrels: If Wolverine from the X-Men wanted to go on a serious bender with this stuff, his mutant healing-factor would come in quite handy.
• Zero barrels: Your engine block probably needs cleaning, doesn't it?

More to come soon.