Cachaça

Cachaça (Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation: [kaˈʃasɐ]) is a distilled spirit made from fermented sugarcane juice. Also known as pinga, caninha, and other names, it is the most popular spirit in Brazil. Outside Brazil, cachaça is used almost exclusively as an ingredient in tropical drinks, with the caipirinha being the most famous and popular cocktail. In Brazil, caipirinha is often paired with the dish feijoada.

Sugar production was mostly switched from the Madeira islands to Brazil by the Portuguese in the 16th century. In Madeira, aguardente de cana is made by distilling fermented 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.

The name Cachaça is legally protected; it can only be produced in Brazil, where, according to 2007 figures, 1,500,000,000 litres (396,000,000 US gal; 330,000,000 imp gal) are consumed annually, compared with 15,000,000 litres (3,960,000 US gal; 3,300,000 imp gal) outside the country. It is typically between 38% and 48% alcohol by volume. When homemade, it can be as strong as the distiller wants. Up to six grams of sugar per liter may be added.

Figures from 2003 indicate 1.3 billion liters of cachaça are produced each year; only 1% of this is exported (mainly to Germany).

Cachaça, like rum, has two varieties: unaged (Portuguese: 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.

In Brazil, there are regions where fine pot still cachaça is produced, such as Salinas in Minas Gerais state, Chã Grande in Pernambuco state, Paraty in Rio de Janeiro state, Monte Alegre do Sul in São Paulo, Luiz Alves in Santa Catarina state, and Abaíra in Bahia state. Nowadays, producers of cachaça can be found in most Brazilian regions, and in 2011, there were over 40,000 of them.

Cachaça is produced in copper stills. Levels of copper in homemade cachaças can exceed the legal limits established by Brazilian law. Some copper is considered desirable in the distillation process as a catalyst for the oxidation of sulfur compounds produced by fermentation, but the levels must be controlled by adequate maintenance and cleaning of the still to remove accumulated verdigris. Adsorbents are used, but the most commonly used adsorbents, activated carbon and ion-exchange resin, have been shown to alter the chemical composition of cachaça. Sugarcane bagasse has been proposed as a selective adsorbent.

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. 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).