Rabo de Galo – IBA

Rabo de Galo ("rooster's tail," a direct translation of the English "cocktail") took shape in São Paulo in the mid-1950s, after the Italian vermouth maker Cinzano opened a factory there. To compete with Brazilians' overwhelming preference for cachaça, Cinzano began promoting the idea of mixing two alcoholic drinks in one glass. Vermouth on its own found few takers, so cachaça and rosso vermouth were paired together and sold as a "cocktail," a practice that took off only once the word was translated into Portuguese.

The drink first caught on as a shot in São Paulo's pés-sujos, or "dirty feet" dive bars, where patrons would splash a few drops on the floor as an offering to a saint before slamming back the mixture and knocking the glass on the counter. Over time it evolved from that theatrical shot into a proper mixed drink served over ice in a larger glass, eventually with cachaça and vermouth joined by Cynar and a citrus garnish, with exact proportions varying widely by bar and region.

Long confined to no-frills bars, Rabo de Galo gained international visibility in the 2010s through the advocacy of Brazilian bartender Derivan Ferreira de Souza, who had earlier championed the Caipirinha's global rise and pushed for Rabo de Galo's recognition abroad. It was added to the International Bartenders Association's official list of Contemporary Classics in the 2024 update, becoming only the second Brazilian cocktail on the list after the Caipirinha.