Caipirinha
Cachaça, lime and sugar muddled in the glass. Brazil's national drink, and a lesson in how much a cheap spirit can do.
Built to the standard modern spec; not yet tested in our kitchen. How we test.
The recipe.
Scaling adjusts quantities only. Prepare shaken drinks in individual portions.
Let’s make a good drink.
Cut half a lime into four wedges and put them in a rocks glass with the sugar.
Muddle firmly enough to release the juice and the oils from the peel, but stop before you crush the white pith.
Add the cachaça and fill the glass with crushed or cracked ice.
Stir from the bottom up to lift the sugar off the base of the glass.
A thoughtful finish
- Muddle the peel, not the pith. Press and twist rather than grinding — pith is where the bitterness lives.
- Superfine sugar dissolves in a cold drink where granulated will sit at the bottom. Caster sugar is the same thing.
- This drink is built and served in the same glass. Nothing is strained, and the spent limes stay in.
Common mistakes
- Using lime juice instead of whole lime wedges. Half the drink's character is the oil from the peel, which juicing leaves behind.
- Over-muddling into the pith, which makes it harshly bitter.
- Substituting white rum. That is a Caipiríssima, a decent drink but not this one — cachaça's grassy, vegetal edge is the point.
A few good questions.
What is cachaça, and how is it different from rum?
Cachaça is Brazilian spirit distilled from fresh-pressed sugarcane juice, bottled between 38% and 48% ABV. Most rum is made from molasses. The fresh juice gives cachaça a grassy, funky, vegetal character that molasses rum does not have.
Can I use brown sugar?
You can, and some Brazilian recipes do. It makes a rounder, slightly molasses-flavoured drink. White sugar keeps the lime and cane brighter, which is the standard build.
Crushed ice or cubes?
Either. Crushed chills and dilutes faster, which suits a hot afternoon; cubes keep it stronger for longer. Brazil generally uses whatever is at hand.
Why is mine bitter?
You muddled too hard and broke into the pith, or you used too much lime. Half a lime is enough for two ounces of spirit.
Variations
- Caipiroska — Vodka in place of cachaça.
- Caipiríssima — White rum in place of cachaça.
- Batida — Cachaça blended with fruit and sometimes condensed milk.
- Passion Fruit Caipirinha — Fresh passion fruit muddled in with the lime.
Where it comes from
c. 1918 · São Paulo state, Brazil
The drink’s folk origin is medicinal: a lime, garlic and honey remedy taken with cachaça during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic in the São Paulo countryside. The garlic and honey fell away, the sugar came in, and what remained was the Caipirinha. The name comes from caipira — a country person, a rustic — with the diminutive -inha, so roughly ‘little country drink’. Cachaça itself long predates it, having been distilled in Brazil since the sixteenth century.
Sources
- Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, cachaça standards, current (regulation)
- IBA Official Cocktails list, current (standards body)
- Gary Regan, The Joy of Mixology, 2003 (book)
Strength. About 1.33 US standard drinks at an estimated 22% ABV, estimated from the ingredients and technique, not measured. What that means.
A little character in every sip.
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