Cachaca - Brazil's Premium Liquor

Cachaca is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented sugarcane juice that is extremely popular in Brazil. Unlike rum, which is made from molasses, cachaca is made from the actual sugar cane itself. Although nearly one and a half billion liters of cachaca are made every year in Brazil, nearly every drop is consumed right at home. This makes the beverage the third most consumed spirit in the world. Cachaca is regionally known as caninha, pinga or aguardente. Cachaca is best known outside of the nation of Brazil as the primary ingredient in the cocktail caipirinha.

Since the Sixteenth Century, Cachaca is brewed in traditional copper pot stills, with the core batch either being poured directly into bottles or aged in wooden barrels. If the cachaca is aged, exotic woods are often used to make the barrels, like that of balsam, almond, jatoba or cherry trees. The type of wood that the distiller chooses is an important part of the process of making cachaca, as each type of wood will impart a different set of flavors into the profile of the beverage. When the cachaca is put directly into the bottle, it is called white cachaca, a cheaper beverage that is of lower quality. Dark cachaca is considered the premium beverage and is a gold flavored beverage that is aged in barrels. Another variety is known as yellow cachaca, where the producer adds wood extracts directly to the clear beverage in an effort to skip the aging process. Either way, the resulting spirit has an alcoholic content that ranges from 38 to 45 percent.

There are some 30,000 producers of cachaca in Brazil, ranging from small, local mills to large companies producing the spirit commercially. Although the upper crust in Brazil are known to look down their nose at cachaca as something of a poor man's drink, it is an important part of Brazilian culture, with each citizen consuming around 3 gallons of the beverage. Some of the finest producers cachaca are Casa Bucco, Canarinha and Aniso Santiago.

A caipirinha is a refreshing beverage made of cachaca, key limes and plenty of sugar. Locals have been known to consume the cocktail as a remedy for the common cold. The sweet taste of acaipirinha can mask some of the finer flavors of high quality cachaca.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cachaça
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_brands_of_Cachaça
http://www1.american.edu/TED/cachaca.htm
http://www.deltatranslator.com/cachaca.htm