Cachaça

Cachaza bottles.

The cachaça is a distilled alcoholic beverage from Brazil. It is obtained as a product of the distillation of fermented sugar cane juice.

While most rums come from molasses —a by-product of sugar processing after its crystallization—, cachaça rum comes from cachaça, which is a by-product before sugar crystallization.

Legal definition

According to the legal definition, cachaça is the product of the distillation of the fermented juice of sugar cane, with an alcohol concentration of between 38% and 48%. They can also be added up to 6 grams of sugar per liter.

Production

There are two types of cachaça: artisanal and industrial.

Artisanal cachaza

Artisanal cachaça is made by thousands of small producers throughout Brazil, being considered the best in the state of Minas Gerais, as well as Paraty (in Rio de Janeiro) and São Paulo, in the city of Pirassununga.

Traditionally, the leavening agent is a cornmeal called fubá, and the distillation is done in a copper vessel.

Generally these cachaças are aged to improve their flavor and quality.

Industrial junk

Industrial cachaça is made by medium and large producers mainly located in the state of Pernambuco and on the outskirts of São Paulo. Industrial producers use the continuous distillation process, and the product is sold to bottlers. For the most part, these cachaças are not aged, but there are also very old and traditional producers located in São Paulo, especially in the city of Pirassununga, where until today it has a large number of artisan producers.

Consumption

A cachaza container (the goat).

Cachaça is usually drunk in cocktails, the best known being the caipirinha, made with lime, sugar, ice and cachaça. It is also common to drink it alone, either in a single gulp, or savoring it (especially when it is of a higher quality).

Cachaça in popular poetry

The scholar Mário Vieira collected in 1950, in the Estância de Umbá, municipality of Cruz Alta (Río Grande do Sul), a delicious “décima” (romance) about cachaça. He heard it from the black Adolfo, in charge of the treasury and singer during off hours. Adolfo died in the summer of 1953. If it weren't for the work of Mário Vieira, these tasty verses might have been lost forever.

Lexicography

The Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, in its word "cachaza", provides two meanings of this term: one refers to the by-product and another to the drink that, by metonymy, receives the same name than the byproduct. The Dicionário da língua portuguesa 2008, in the voice "cachaça" provides the same meanings: one proper and another metonymic.