''Cachaça'' () is a

distilled spirit Liquor (or a spirit) is an alcoholic drink produced by distillation of grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar, that have already gone through alcoholic fermentation. Other terms for liquor include: spirit drink, distilled beverage or ha ...

made from fermented

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...

juice. Also known as ''pinga'', ''caninha'', and other names, it is the most popular spirit among

distilled Distillation, or classical distillation, is the process of separating the components or substances from a liquid mixture by using selective boiling and condensation, usually inside an apparatus known as a still. Dry distillation is the heating ...

alcoholic beverages An alcoholic beverage (also called an alcoholic drink, adult beverage, or a drink) is a drink that contains ethanol, a type of alcohol that acts as a drug and is produced by fermentation of grains, fruits, or other sources of sugar. The cons ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

.Cavalcante, Messias Soares. Todos os nomes da cachaça. São Paulo: Sá Editora, 2011. 392p. Outside Brazil, cachaça is used almost exclusively as an ingredient in tropical drinks, with the ''

caipirinha Caipirinha () is Brazil's national cocktail, made with cachaça ( sugarcane hard liquor), sugar, and lime. The drink is prepared by mixing the fruit and the sugar together, then adding the liquor. This can be made in a single large glass to be ...

'' being the most famous cocktail. In Brazil, caipirinha is often paired with the dish ''

feijoada ''Feijoada'' () is a stew of beans with beef and pork. The name ''feijoada'' comes from ''feijão'', 'bean' in Portuguese. It is widely prepared in the Portuguese-speaking world, with slight variations. The basic ingredients of feijoada are bean ...

''.

History

Sugar production was mostly switched from the

Madeira islands ) , anthem = ( en, "Anthem of the Autonomous Region of Madeira") , song_type = Regional anthem , image_map=EU-Portugal_with_Madeira_circled.svg , map_alt=Location of Madeira , map_caption=Location of Madeira , subdivision_type=Sovereign st ...

by the Portuguese in the 16th century. In Madeira, ''

aguardente (Spanish), or (Portuguese) ( eu, pattar; ca, aiguardent; gl, augardente), is a generic term for alcoholic beverages that contain between 29% and 60% alcohol by volume (ABV). It originates in the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain) and in I ...

de cana'' is made by distilling sugar cane juice into liquor, and the pot stills from Madeira were brought to Brazil to make what today is also called ''cachaça''. The process dates from 1532, when one of the Portuguese colonists brought the first cuttings of sugar cane to Brazil from Madeira. ''Cachaça'' can only be produced in Brazil, where, according to 2007 figures, are consumed annually, compared with outside the country. It is typically between 38% and 48%

alcohol by volume Alcohol by volume (abbreviated as ABV, abv, or alc/vol) is a standard measure of how much alcohol (ethanol) is contained in a given volume of an alcoholic beverage (expressed as a volume percent). It is defined as the number of millilitres (mL) o ...

.Cavalcante, Messias Soares. A verdadeira história da cachaça. São Paulo: Sá Editora, 2011. 608p. When homemade, it can be as strong as the distiller wants. Up to six grams per litre of

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

may be added. Figures from 2003 indicate 1.3 billion litres of cachaça are produced each year; only 1% of this is exported (mainly to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Production

Cachaça, like

rum Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is usually aged in oak barrels. Rum is produced in nearly every sugar-producing region of the world, such as the Ph ...

, has two varieties: unaged ( pt, branca, "white" or ''prata'', "silver") and aged (''amarela'', "yellow" or ''ouro'', "gold"). White cachaça is usually bottled immediately after distillation and tends to be cheaper. Some producers age it for up to 12 months in wooden barrels to achieve a smoother blend. It is often used as an ingredient in caipirinha and other mixed beverages. Dark cachaça, usually seen as the "premium" variety, is aged in wood barrels and is meant to be drunk neat. It is usually aged for up to 3 years, though some "ultra premium" cachaças have been aged for up to 15 years. Its flavour is influenced by the type of wood the barrel is made from. There are very important regions in Brazil where fine

pot still A pot still is a type of distillation apparatus or still used to distill liquors such as whisky or brandy. In modern (post-1850s) practice, they are not used to produce rectified spirit, because they do not separate congeners from ethanol as eff ...

cachaça is produced such as Salinas in

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literally ...

state,

Chã Grande Chã Grande is a city located in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil. It is 80 km away from Recife, the capital of the state of Pernambuco. It has an estimated ( IBGE 2020) population of 21,815 inhabitants. Geography * State - Pernambuco * Region ...

Pernambuco Pernambuco () is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. With an estimated population of 9.6 million people as of 2020, making it seventh-most populous state of Brazil and with around 98,148 km², being the 19 ...

state,

Paraty Paraty (or Parati, ) is a preserved Portuguese colonial (1500–1822) and Brazilian Imperial (1822–1889) municipality with a population of about 43,000. Indeed, the name "Paraty" originates from the local Guaianá Indians' Indigenous Tupi ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

state, Monte Alegre do Sul in

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...

state and

Abaíra Abaíra is a municipality in the state of Bahia in the North-East region of Brazil. See also *List of municipalities in Bahia This is a list of the municipalities in the state of Bahia (BA), located in the Northeast Region of Brazil. Bahia i ...

Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 Federative units of Brazil, states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo (sta ...

state. Nowadays, producers of cachaça can be found in most Brazilian regions and in 2011 there were over 40,000 of them.

Heavy metals

Cachaça is produced in copper stills. Levels of copper in homemade cachaças can exceed the legal limits established by

Brazilian law The law of Brazil is based on statutes and, partly and more recently, a mechanism called ''súmulas vinculantes''. It derives mainly from the civil law systems of European countries, particularly Portugal, the Napoleonic Code and the Germanic la ...

. Some copper is considered desirable in the distillation process as a catalyst for oxidation of sulfur compounds produced by fermentation, but the levels must be controlled by adequate maintenance and cleaning of the distiller to remove accumulated

verdigris Verdigris is the common name for blue-green, copper-based pigments that form a patina on copper, bronze, and brass. The technical literature is ambiguous as to its chemical composition. Some sources refer to "neutral verdigris" as copper(II) ac ...

Adsorbents Adsorption is the adhesion of atoms, ions or molecules from a gas, liquid or dissolved solid to a surface. This process creates a film of the ''adsorbate'' on the surface of the ''adsorbent''. This process differs from absorption, in which a ...

are used, but the most commonly used adsorbents,

activated carbon Activated carbon, also called activated charcoal, is a form of carbon commonly used to filter contaminants from water and air, among many other uses. It is processed (activated) to have small, low-volume pores that increase the surface area avail ...

and

ion-exchange resin An ion-exchange resin or ion-exchange polymer is a resin or polymer that acts as a medium for ion exchange. It is an insoluble matrix (or support structure) normally in the form of small (0.25–1.43 mm radius) microbeads, usually white or ye ...

, have been shown to alter the chemical composition of cachaça. Sugarcane

bagasse Bagasse ( ) is the dry pulpy fibrous material that remains after crushing sugarcane or sorghum stalks to extract their juice. It is used as a biofuel for the production of heat, energy, and electricity, and in the manufacture of pulp and building ...

has been proposed as a selective adsorbent.

Synonyms

For more than four centuries of history, cachaça has accumulated synonyms and creative nicknames coined by the Brazilian people. Some of these words were created for the purpose of deceiving the supervision of the metropolis in the days when cachaça was banned in Brazil; the beverage was competing with the European distillate ''

grappa Grappa is an alcoholic beverage: a fragrant, grape-based pomace brandy of Italian origin that contains 35 to 60 percent alcohol by volume (70 to 120 US proof). Grappa is made by distilling the skins, pulp, seeds, and stems (i.e., the poma ...

''. There are more than two thousand words to refer to the Brazilian national distillate. Some of these nicknames are: ''abre-coração'' (heart-opener), ''água-benta'' (holy water), ''bafo-de-tigre'' (tiger breath), and ''limpa-olho'' (eye-wash).

Difference from rum

In the beginning of the 17th century, the producers of sugar from various European colonies in the Americas used the by-products of sugar,

molasses Molasses () is a viscous substance resulting from refining sugarcane or sugar beets into sugar. Molasses varies in the amount of sugar, method of extraction and age of the plant. Sugarcane molasses is primarily used to sweeten and flavour foods ...

, and scummings as the raw material for the production of alcoholic spirits. The resulting beverage was known by several names: in British colonies, it was named ''rum''; in France, ''

tafia Tafia (possibly an alteration of ''ratafia'', via aphesis) is a kind of rum made from sugarcane juice. It is typically unaged whereas rum is typically aged in wooden barrels to reduce the level of fusel. Most of the fusel is absorbed in the first ...

''; in Spain, ''aguardiente de caña''; and in Portugal (Brazil), ''aguardente da terra'', ''aguardente de cana'' and later ''cachaça'' (locals also call it "Pinga" which translates to drip). The major difference between cachaça and

is that rum is usually made from

, a by-product after a refinery boils the cane juice to extract as much sugar crystal as possible, while cachaça is made from fresh sugarcane juice, fermented and distilled. Some rums, in particular the ''

rhum agricole Rhum agricole () is the French term for ''sugarcane juice rum'', a style of rum originally distilled in the French West Indies#French Caribbean, French Caribbean islands from freshly squeezed sugarcane juice rather than molasses. ''Rhum'' is the ...

'' of the

French Caribbean The French West Indies or French Antilles (french: Antilles françaises, ; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Antiy fwansez) are the parts of France located in the Antilles islands of the Caribbean: * The two overseas departments of: ** Guadeloupe, ...

, are also made by the latter process. Cachaça is also known as Brazilian rum. In the United States, cachaça is recognized as a type of rum and distinctive Brazilian product after an agreement was signed in 2013 with Brazil in which it will drop the usage of the term Brazilian rum.

References and notes

External links

O Álbum Virtual de Rótulos de Garrafas de Cachaça na Net
��Web site dedicated to cachaça labels. In English and Portuguese.
Know more ABOUT cachaçaCachaça HUB - Initiative in Europe about cachaça
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cachaca Brazilian alcoholic drinks Brazilian cuisine Distilled drinks Sugar Portuguese words and phrases Brazilian distilled drinks Culture in Minas Gerais