Monday, January 6, 2014

The mother of invention - São Sebastião


I think most people who read my blog know what is a caipirinha. It is possibly Brazil's national drink, made with the local type of rum called cachaça, sugar, fruit of most kinds and ice. I love the stuff but it is deadly--one of these drinks and I'm sleeping on the couch for the rest of the afternoon.

At the house we rented in São Sebastião, there was no good mixing shaker so we dumped the sugar out of the sugar holder, poured in the ingredients, held a finger over the spout and shook it up. Delicious.

3 comments:

  1. Oh no, you called it "rum"... Now you're gonna have a horde of cachaceiros (the producers and the drinkers) beating down your door to school you on the proper terminology, the 4,000 different nicknames, and most importantly the trade agreement with the US that says that cachaca will not under any circumstances be called "rum" ever again. :-)

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    1. LOL!!! Okay, Andrew is back from holiday break. For some reason, I just KNEW I was going to get a comment from you on this one! And you are absolutely right, I have committed a cardinal sin by referring to cachaça as rum. It is a sugar cane derivative, can I say that? Lordy, I am going to be sued by 51...

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    2. Am I that obvious? :-) To be fair, I'm not the one nitpicking for once. I just find it really silly that people get so worked up about a name (for two very similar things) that it even makes it into an international trade agreement. Then again, protected names seem to work well for champagne and things like that so why not?

      Don't worry about 51. They're not cachaca either. I think they add sugar to the recipe which oddly enough isn't allowed. If I remember correctly, they only say "aguardente" on their label.

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