Summary

- Brazilian tradition
- Cachaça runs wild
- Our choice
- Some trivia about cachaça
- Towards new consumption ways
- Straight or mixed

Cachaça is the Brazilian national distillate, as grappa is for Italy, cognac for France or rum for Cuba. It is produced in many different regions of the Country, even if Minas Gerais is the main one. It is present on the market in such an incredible number of names and types that, recently, they tried to accomplish a sort of census of all the names of the renowned sugar cane distillate. They went through água-benta, branquinha, caninha, pinga, purinha, zuninga, etc. till they reached 200 names and they decided to quit the venture.
Europe is not completely aware of this extraordinary richness, because the number of imported brands is still scarce and the consumption of cachaça continues to be mostly limited to mixed drinks.
Cachaça, in fact, still means Caipirinha, the famous Brazilian pounded cocktail that is very easy to prepare: one lime cut into pieces, two teaspoons of cane sugar, 4cl of cachaça and crushed ice. Fresh and thirst-quenching, it has become the founder of an entire family of cocktails, the caipirinhas, where we find Caipimelon (caipirinha with pieces of melon), Caipiroska (vodka instead of cachaça) and Caipirissima (with rum), all with an exotic charm and evocative of the carioca joy. And in fact, caipirinhas have become one of the many stereotypes by which we evoke Bazil in our imagery: samba, carnival, football, etc.

Brazilian tradition
Stereotypes are often misleading but, in this case, cachaça and Caipirinha are really part of the soul and History of Brazil, so much that President Luiz Inacio Luna himself has risen to defend them, with a law that states that "cachaça" and "Caipirinha" are "copyrighted" Brazilian terms.
And how to say he's wrong, knowing that the first written traces of cachaça date back to the 16th Century? According to tradition, this distillate was originally created and consumed by slaves working in plantations and mines. They discovered the reinvigorating properties of this spirit obtained from the distillation of the sugar cane, concentrated and fermented, very similar to rum also in terms of the production process, even if slightly less alcoholic and with a more intense aroma.
By the way, rum and cachaça differ in some substantial aspects.
The primary difference is that rum is generally made from molasses, a by-product from refineries that boil the cane juice to extract as many sugar crystals as possible; the remaining molasses or black strap is sold to rum producers. Cachaça is made from fresh sugarcane juice that's fermented and distilled. Aged cachaças are made according to detailed, traditional methods.

Cachaça runs wild
Nowadays, it has become the most popular beverage of Brazil, able to satisfy every taste and every pocket: consider that Cachaça is the 3rd most consumed spirit of the world (behind Vodka and Soju) with 1,3 billion litres produced each year, but only 1,5% of this production is exported. It is true that a bottle of the most expensive and prestigious cachaça, the Havana produced by Fazenda Havana in Salinas, may even cost 200 euros, but this is more the exception than the rule: consumers, in fact, can choose among many different brands, all sold at a much lower price.
To understand the hugeness of the market around cachaça, just notice that there are 30.000 producers in Brazil and 5.000 brands in circulation. Cachaça exports were over 11 million litres in 2000, whose main consumers were Germany, France and Portugal, but later on in 2004, exports to Europe have reached 1 million cases annually, due to the further discovery of the product by other countries. As its short-term next goal, Brazil hopes to increase cachaça exports to 38 million litres by 2010.
However, Brazilian cachaça exporters must first overcome distribution problems. Unlike other distillates, in fact, cachaça companies have trouble finding expert distribution companies.



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