How to make caipirinha, Brazil's national cocktail
As our Olympian heroes do their thing in Rio, it's important we support them however we can. For most Australians, incredible feats of athleticism are far out of our reach, so why not do something we're all pretty good at, and reach for a stiff drink instead?
Yes, what better way to cheer on our athletes than a frosty glass of Brazilian rum smushed up with sugar and lime, the national drink of Brazil, the caipirinha (pronounced kai-pee-REEN-ya).
The combination of rum, lime and sugar goes all the way back to the colonial era. Long before American mining engineer Jennings Cox decided to refine the recipe with his daiquiri in Cuba in 1899, sailors, slaves and everyone else who needed a drink were mixing the rough and unrefined rums of the Caribbean with lime and sugar to make them more palatable. The caipirinha harks back to these ancient concoctions, from a time before bartenders took hold of the recipe and made it fancy.
Rough and ready, and ultimately delicious, the caipirinha is a drink of the people. Ubiquitous in Brazilian bars, restaurants and homes, it needs no special ingredients and no special skills or equipment to make. But it does need a special rum.
To be a true caipirinha, it must be made with cachaca (ka-SHA-sa), the Brazilian native rum that's made nowhere else on earth. This rum is special not only as one of the highest selling spirits in the world thanks to its popularity at home (all the gin consumed globally doesn't come close to the amount of cachaca consumed in Brazil alone), but also because of how it's made.
Unlike most other rums, which are distilled from molasses, cachaca is made from freshly-pressed cane juice. This lends the style a uniquely grassy and vegetal character. For a delicious caipirinha, try a high-quality cachaca like Leblon or Sagatiba.
The other thing that sets this drink apart is the use of whole limes, instead of just the strained juice like you would with a daiquiri. The lime is muddled with sugar to release the juice, but the friction of the sugar on the lime's skin also releases bitter aromatic oils that add another layer of flavour and complexity to an otherwise simple drink.
The sugar is dissolved in the lime juice and cachaca and then the whole thing is shaken with ice. The result is one of the most refreshing and delicious tropical drinks ever created, the liquid pride of Brazil long before (and probably long after) the excitement of the Olympics.
How to make the perfect caipirinha
Ingredients
1 ripe, juicy lime cut into quarters
1 tbsp of castor sugar
60ml cachaca-style rum (Fred recommends Leblon or Sagatiba)
Method
1. Place the cut lime in the bottom of a cocktail shaker tin
2. Add the sugar on top
3. Muddle the lime and sugar together until the lime releases its juice. DON'T over-muddle or your caipirinha will be too bitter
4. Add the cachaca and stir for a few seconds to dissolve the sugar
5. Fill the shaker half way with cubed ice, then shake hard for 10 seconds
6. Dump the contents of the shaker into a tumbler without straining and serve
… Or where to buy one ready-made
If you're out and about looking for a place to sample the nectar of Brazil, check out these bars:
Sydney: Lobo Plantation – Central Sydney temple to rum and all things Caribbean
Melbourne: 1806, – Melbourne CBD's ode to the classic cocktail
Melbourne: The Rum Diary – your Hemingway fantasies realised in trendy Fitzroy
Perth: Angels' Cut – All class and all rum all the time, this is your best in the west for a caipirinha
Brisbane: Walrus – This basement bar has all the rum you could want, and knows how to use it
Airlie Beach: The Rum Bar – Possibly the best caipirinha in Australia, and you get to drink it in beautiful tropical surrounds.