The drink caipirinha is world famous. I will explain to you how to make a good one on this page. I will also explain what other alcoholic drinks that can be appreciated. Let´s start with the classic.
Caipirinha I will first present you to a classic recipe:
(1 drink)
- 5 cl cachaça (sugarcane alcohol) - 1 soft lime - 1 - 1 1/2 tbsp sugar (from sugarcane) - crushed ice Roll and cut the lime in 1 cm pieces and remove the bitter white stalk, put them in a large whisky glass. Add the sugar and crush the pieces of lime with a pestle just so much that you get the lime juice out. Fill the glass with crushed ice and top up with cachaça. Stir hard for a few seconds and then serve it with a straw. If you have to substitute the cachaça it´s best done with white rum (it technically becomes a caipirissima) or vodka (caipiroska) Other types of sugar changes the dimensions a little bit but works fine.
The type of cachaça used changes the drink completely, traditionally you use the industrial varieties like 51, Ypioca or Velho Barreiro. More exclusive brands like many from Minas Gerais makes it a different, in some peoples view more sophisticated drink. Now it´s time for my own recipe for a caipirinha if you want to try it. It´s smoother and has more lime juice than lime peel taste.
(1 drink)
- 5 cl cachaça (I prefer vodka) - 1 soft lime - 1 - 1 1/2 tbsp sugar - crushed ice and a few icecubes Roll and remove 90% of the peel from the lime. Cut it in pieces and remove the white stalk. Crush it in a shaker together with the sugar with a pestle, add half a glass of crushed ice and shake it well. Add the alcohol and another half a glass of crushed ice. Shake again. Put one or two icecubes in a glass and pour the drink in to it. Serve it with a straw.
I´m well aware that this clip is not amazing, but together with the caipirinha recipe above it can be helpful. I will replace it when I get a camera man...
Caipifrutas In the above recipes you can replace the lime with other fresh fruits, then you get a caipifruta. The amount of fruit and sugar varies with the sweetness and flavour of the fruit. It´s common to use strawberry, kiwi, passion fruit and pineapple. An interesting version of this is to prepare it with saké and kiwi.
Batidas means shaken in Portuguese and it´s just like the name; The ingredients are shaken together. What´s in it vary but it´s vodka or cachaça with fruit juice, sugar and sometimes condensed milk or coconut milk. Common fruit juices are strawberry, passion fruit and mango.
Beer Beer is really popular in Rio. The hot climate has created a light beer that is best served really cold. Traditionally you drink it as draught beer chope in glasses. In more cheaper establishments you have 60 cl bottles you share between your friends in small glasses. On the beach or at street parties you have cans sold from styrofoam ice coolers. For chope the most common brand is Brahma. Bottled or canned the more exclusive are Cerpa and Bohemia; standard is Antartica, Skol, Brahma and Itaipava; the cheapest are Crystal, Lokal, Cintra and Bavaria. In the stores you have varieties like dark beer, sweet malt beer and weissbier. Imported beer is without exception really expensive.
Cachaça In the caipirinha section above I mention cachaça, it is the national alcohol of Brazil and is made from sugarcane. It can also be called pinga or aguardente but is essentially the same thing. The most common brands are produced industrially (I mentioned some brans above) while you have cachaça artesanal which is produced locally. The later is suitable for ageing, if you do that you get cachaça envelhecida (aged), a good bottle of that can be over 300U$.
Wine Brazil has actually a few good vineyards nowadays. Except for one producer who is based in Pernambuco all the others are in the South of Brazil. It is mainly Red wine that is produced but there are also some white and sparkling wines. If you are interested in a good red wine to try I´d recommend Miolo Reserva "Pinot Noir", a relly good sparkling wine is Chandon. If you want to know where to buy wine and alcohol in Rio just click
here
and you´ll be taken to my page about that.
