The caipirinha comes to us from Brazil. It was virtually unknown outside that country a few years ago, but it's gaining popularity around the globe. The word caipirinha is a derivative of the word caipira, which is roughly analogous to the English word "hillbilly."
The primary component of the cocktail is cachaça, which is a type of Brazilian rum. The main difference between cachaça and traditional rums is that it's distilled from sugar cane juice (as opposed to molasses) and then aged in oak barrels. The reason the caipirinha cocktail has been gaining ground outside Brazil lately is the increased availability of quality cachaça.
Case in point, Gecko's Restaurant & Bar in Itaewon, in the Yongsan borough of Seoul, South Korea. I was sitting at the bar last night for a coworker's birthday party and I happened to notice a poster on a nearby pillar, advertising the caipirinha. Remembering the odd name and the eldritch ingredients from The Bartender's Bible, and realizing that this was a golden opportunity (the ₩8,000 price tag notwithstanding), I ordered one.
Enough background for ya? Okay, here's the recipe:
- 1 lime, quartered
- 2 teaspoons fine sugar
- 2 ounces cachaça
Place the lime wedges and sugar into an old-fashioned glass. Muddle well. Fill the glass with ice cubes. Pour in the cachaça and stir well.
This is exactly how I observed the bartender doing it last night at Gecko's. Lime wedges and chunky sugar, muddled well, and then the cachaça poured in over the top. It was delicious, sweeter than I'd expected. I didn't realize sugar was such a large or vital component to the drink, and I didn't recall the ingredient list before I got home and checked online. Nevertheless, the taste was as limey as I had anticipated, and that was a welcome complement to the sugar. The cachaça was milder and more mellow than a lot of light rums I've tasted, and was only just discernible underneath the sugar and lime; whether this was the fault of the bartender's light hand or the cachaça's inherent properties was a mystery to me. Nevertheless I heartily enjoyed the drink and found it soothing, pleasant, summery and delicious.
Yes, it's a drink for a hot day and not a winter's night, but in that warm, smoky gallery at Gecko's in Itaewon, it was just what the doctor ordered. Try it and see for yourself.
4 comments:
You've managed to make me crave rum at 8:37 in the morning.
Then my work here is done, ha!
And on a Sunday, even.
You also have to be extremely careful when having caiprinha while sitting on a sunny beach. BEcause of the high sugar content, it can get to your head amazingly quickly. I´m not a big fan of caipirinha, although I am Brazilian. But here are a couple more tricks to make it better: some people remove the skin from the limes. Don´t. Simply roll the limes with your hand on a hard top, to get rid of the bitter taste contained on the skin. Also try using brown sugar instead of the fine white one. Enjoy it!
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