Cachaçagora - Cachaça, Caipirinha, And Cocktails

Review: Beija Cachaça

This entrant, currently available in-and-around New England, has been in the "Tasting Lab" (i.e., my kitchen counter) for a pretty long time. The Beija Guys (as they two young entrepreneurs are called in their newsletter) found me and sent over a couple of bottles a while ago.

While Beija is maybe not my first choice taken straight — and I strongly deny that cocktail-mixing is a universally necessary evil when it comes to white cachaça — it makes for a very capable and versatile mixer, much like Sagatiba Pura. During my wife's birthday party, I used Beija in a 2:3::cachaça:milk brunch cocktail with sugar, nutmeg, and a dash of vanilla extract. Two guests enjoyed it, one not so much. All told, not a bad ratio considering my good-entertainer's tendency to mix things a little on the stronger side.

A few after-work caipirinhas and Cafés Irlandês continued to make Beija a welcome addition to the bar throughout the month. It's pretty tough to go wrong with this one.

Now... If only they could inch westward from Mass., Conn., and Rhode Island...

Three-and-a-half barrels with a bullet. Definitely one to watch.

Review: Boca Loca

The folks at Boca Loca found me here at Cachaçagora and thoughtfully sent over a bottle for review.

Overall, good. For those of you who perhaps tire of cachaças aged in old oak barrels, Boca Loca offers a nice alternative that you ought to try — 90 days in native Brazilian jequitibá barrels

The very strong caramel flavors darn near put this cachaça into liqueur territory. Highly drinkable, especially straight, but you're really going to want to be careful with this one.

Thankfully, this cachaça has better distribution than many, though I haven't yet seen it in Chicago liquor stores. You can see where to buy Boca Loca thanks to this handy map.

Three-and-a-half barrels for Boca Loca. If you find this one, tell me what you think.

Oh... Just to keep everything in one place, here's a cocktail recipe, the Herb Cane, that I pointed to earlier.

Review: Sagatiba Pura

I've often thought about what I've come to call the Vodka Distiller's Dilemma. This little homespun rule observes that the degree to which the popular culture values the vodka maker's craft is the degree to which club patrons can exclaim "Wow! You can hardly taste the vodka!" when said product is put in a mixed drink. The esteem ascribed to that arduously crafted spirit is, therefore, proportional to its ability to hide itself in, say, the average Ocean Spray product.

As such, I'm driven to sympathize with Sagatiba Pura, Sagatiba's multi-distilled white cachaça, which sits alongside its more premium Velha and Preçiosa lines. Clearly (no pun intended) much effort goes into this fine spirit, though that effort may end up lost on many.

By itself, it is very smooth. Perhaps not my first choice for a sipping cachaça but, then again, that's probably what Velha and Preçiosa are for.

As a mixer, though, it's darn near perfect. This past weekend, I tried it in a traditional caipirinha as well as the batida de morango recipe (more like a strawberry caipirinha, really) posted the other day. Sagatiba Pura seemed to scream for the fruits to bring out the sugarcane characteristics, which may have been muted during the multiple-distillation process that appears to be the basis for the product's marketing.

Sagatiba Pura was quite unnecessarily savaged in this Forbes review, ranking dead last in a blind tasting of five cachaças. With comments like "the sugar in the caipirinha hides a multitude of sins", it really makes me wonder what the guy was actually tasting. Sounds more like he was looking for an excuse to use that line.

I hope that the Forbes review didn't discourage folks from giving Sagatiba a try. Going three-and-a-half-barrels-with-a-bullet on this one.

Oh... And if you're just now joining us on Cachaçagora, you'll also want to check out the cachaça feature that Mark Tafoya did, featuring Sagatiba.

Oh... One more thing... Happy Birthday to me... *8-)

Review: Cachaça Século XVIII 2007

This was a very nice, pleasant-to-sip white cachaça. Surprisingly smooth, actually, when consumed neat. (I often find most white cachaças in desperate need of mixer-mating, which pulled this cachaça out of the merely decent category.) Nice finish that stays around for a bit in a not-unpleasant way.

Giving it three-and-a-half barrels.