Caipirinha
Brazil’s national drink: crushed lime, crisp sugar and cachaça, raw and refreshing all at once.
Ingredients
- Cachaça60 ml
- Lime, cut into wedges, white pith removed1 whole
- Ice, crushed or cubedfill the glass
- Sugar, cane sugar preferred9 g
- Lime, for garnish (optional)1 wedge
Method
- Cut the lime into wedges and remove the white pith to avoid bitterness.
- Place the lime wedges flesh-side up in a rocks glass and scatter the sugar over them.
- Muddle gently — press rather than mash, so the oils and juice are released without bitterness.
- Add the cachaça.
- Fill the glass with ice and stir well.
- Garnish with a lime wedge if you like, and serve at once.
About this drink
The Caipirinha comes from rural Brazil, where the sugar-cane spirit cachaça has been an everyday drink for centuries. Its name means roughly ‘little country girl’, a nod to the drink’s humble, unpolished origins. Today it is Brazil’s official national drink and a defining part of every cachaça distillery’s identity.
Questions and answers
Can you make a Caipirinha with rum instead of cachaça?
It is technically called a Caipiroska with vodka or a Caipirissima with rum, and it tastes distinctly different. Cachaça has a green, grassy funk that rum cannot imitate, so try the real thing if you can find it.
Why should you remove the lime’s white pith?
The pith under the peel is bitter, and if it is muddled into the drink, the bitterness takes over. Cut the lime into wedges and trim away the pith, so only peel and flesh go into the glass.
