IBA
Caipirinha – IBA
Muddle ∙ 3 min ∙ 32.6% ABV ∙
Brazil's national cocktail, the Caipirinha muddles fresh lime and sugar with cachaça, served unstrained over ice. Tart lime and gritty raw sugar dissolve into the grassy, vegetal bite of cachaça, finishing crisp and refreshing enough for a hot afternoon.
Ingredients
1
Servings
Instructions for 1 serving
- Pre-chill a glass
- Place Fresh lime and Sugar cube 2 pcs into a double old fashioned glass
- Muddle gently
- Fill the glass with cracked ice and add Cachaça 60 ml
- Stir gently to combine
Tips
- Fill the glass with cracked ice after muddling, as the card does, then pour the cachaça over it so it rinses the muddled sugar down.
- Muddle the lime wedges with the sugar cubes firmly enough to release juice and oils, but stop once the peel is pressed, not pulverized.
- Fill the glass with crushed or small cubed ice after muddling, then pour the cachaça directly over the ice so it rinses down all the muddled sugar.
- Stir briefly with a bar spoon to dissolve any remaining sugar crystals before serving, since unmuddled sugar sinks and stays gritty.
History
The Caipirinha is Brazil's national cocktail, and its exact origin is debated even though its cachaça-lime-sugar formula is standard. Wikipedia notes that scholarly consensus places its invention in the interior of São Paulo state, Brazil, in 1918, with some historians tracing it further back to 19th-century landowning farmers in the Piracicaba region who served it at high-society parties. A competing account holds that a similar drink arose around the same time in the Alentejo region of Portugal, made with lemon, garlic, and honey as a remedy for the Spanish flu, rather than the lime-and-cachaça version known today. The name derives from "caipira," a Portuguese term for a rural countryside dweller, reflecting the drink's folk origins. This IBA listing is the International Bartenders Association's official codification of the classic recipe, standardizing the traditional muddled cachaça, lime, and sugar build served in a double old-fashioned glass as one of its Contemporary Classics rather than presenting a distinct variation.
