The two-strong "premium" cachaça range was launched in New York, Florida, Southern California, Northern California and Nevada this week, the group's US unit said yesterday (12 June). The launch was timed to coincide with yesterday's International Cachaça Day.
Pura is almost devoid of personality, I feel. It's far more "neutral" than I tend to like my cachaças. Velha, however, is very much worth trying. Hopefully the brand will be making it over to Illinois.
The big thing that the new Sagatiba is missing: global brand ambassador John Gakuru, now at Think Spirits. One of the hardest working such ambassadors you're likely to find. Seriously. His globe-trotting Facebook posts used to give me whiplash.
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.
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.
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!)
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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-)
Hi. My name is Phil Gomes. By day, I work at a public relations firm as its senior vice president of digital integration. I'm a proud SF East Bay native who currently lives in Chicago.
I was introduced to cachaça by my wife, a Carioca. Her mom, in turn, is the president of the Confraria de Cachaça do Copo Furado, a group that meets monthly to talk about Brazil's indigenous spirit. I participated in one of their meetings when I vacationed in Rio in July 2008.
This started me thinking about the basic question of whether cachaça in the U.S. is today where, say, tequila was some decades ago.
So I decided to start this blog as a means to record and share the cachaça-related items I've been seeing day-to-day. I hope to be sharing recipes, impressions, and random thoughts as the U.S. continues to catch on to the potential for this particular spirit.
Oh... The name? "Cachaçagora" is a portmanteau of "Cachaça" and "agora", which is the Portuguese word for "now". In Greek, "agora" also means public square. I hope to meet the expectations of both.
Comments here are unmoderated and are operated on a use-until-abused basis. I will adopt a moderation policy if I feel that my visitors abuse this privilege.
I will delete any comment that is lewd, crude, lascivious, racist, sexist, libelous, off-topic, or injurious to the privacy of a non-public individual. Such users will be forever banned from commenting on this site.
From time to time, certain comments will be investigated if they appear to be marketing spam. The offending company gets one free pass before public censure.
In short, treat me as your host and I will treat you as my guest.
Recent Comments