Caipirinha
Brazil's national drink, built rough in the glass. Lime and sugar muddled, cachaça, crushed ice.
At a Glance
Story
The caipirinha is not a shaken sour, it is built right in the glass, which is what sets it apart from the margarita and daiquiri next door. Cachaça is the Brazilian spirit pressed from fresh sugarcane juice rather than molasses, so it tastes grassier and greener than rum. Muddling the lime with the sugar pulls the oil out of the peel, which is where half the flavor lives.
Ingredients
- ½ limecut into wedges
- 2 tsp raw or granulated sugar
- 2 oz cachaça
- crushed iceto fill
Method
The one you build in the glass, no shaker, no strainer. It is Brazil's national drink and it wants to be a little rough around the edges.
- Drop the lime wedges and sugar into a sturdy rocks glass and muddle them together firmly, pressing to release the juice and the oil from the peel. Stop before you shred the bitter white pith.
- Fill the glass to the top with crushed ice, then pour the cachaça over it.
- Stir up from the bottom with a bar spoon so the sugar and lime work all the way through the ice.
For a kiwi caipirinha, peel a ripe kiwi and muddle it in with the lime. For a strawberry one, muddle in three or four ripe hulled strawberries, they are sweet enough that you can cut the sugar back to a teaspoon.
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