Published December 16, 2015

Cachaca is Coming on Strong

The cocktail craze has brought many previously-neglected spirits to prominence in recent years. American consumers who once turned their nose up at anything other than vodka are now obsessed with bourbon, artisanal tequila, and stranger liquors like chartreuse. One spirit that is poised to benefit from America’s newfound taste for exotic imbibables is cachaca, Brazil’s national liquor.

Cachaca is a snappy, spicy, and sweet clear liquor made from fermented sugarcane juice. It is most well known for being the base for the Caipirinha, a cocktail of cachaca, lime, and sugar that tastes like Brazil’s beaches in a glass. Although cachaca has traditionally only really been available in Brazilian restaurants in the US, it is growing in popularity, and with good reason. Cachaca is complex yet light, and it’s highly mixable. Artisanal cachacas made in traditional copper pot stills are becoming more available in America, introducing US drinkers to the wide variety of flavor profiles the spirit can have.

One incredibly exciting thing about cachaca is that it’s the only widely available spirit in the world that can be aged in the rainforest woods of Brazil. Most of the flavor of aged spirits comes from the barrels in which they are aged, and the exotic woods used for cachaca have flavor profiles that are unfamiliar to most drinkers.

Cachaca seems like it may take the same path in the American drinking market that tequila did recently, as American consumers discover the variety and quality of a spirit that was previously seen as a one-trick pony.

Read the full article here: A Complete Guide to Cachaca: Brazil’s Most Popular Spirit