Caipirinhas are one of the most famous and tasty cocktails from Brazil and with good reason. Making use of our native-made spirit, cachaca, it’s a unique and flavorful drink that goes great with all manner of different meals.
But did you know there are a lot of different variations to the recipe to make altogether different cocktails that pair equally well with different aspects of Brazilian barbecue? It’s true!
Today, we wanted to talk about the humble caipirinha, along with the variations you can try.
Table of Contents
All About the Basic Caipirinha
The classic caipirinha is a fairly simple cocktail that has been popular in Brazil since its invention around a hundred years ago. The oldest known records of the drink are from 1918 from somewhere in Sao Paulo, though the specifics have been lost to time.
There are some people who believe a similar recipe from Portugal made the jump across the seas, though the one they cite uses lemon, garlic, and honey, which makes for a very different drink. Likewise, some reference a similar drink called Poncha, which comes from elsewhere in Portugal and uses aguardente de cana. It’s a closer link, but it’s still not quite right.
Today, the caipirinha is both a delicious drink suitable to join nearly any meal and even a bit of a tonic and remedy to cool down the effects of the common cold. It’s popular at bars, at parties, and served alongside churrasco, among many other ways and locations.
It has also been designated a contemporary classic cocktail by the International Bartenders Association and is gaining popularity outside of Brazil thanks in part to its availability at restaurants like Texas de Brazil and in part due to the broader availability of the key ingredient, cachaca.
What is Cachaca?
Cachaca is the key ingredient in a caipirinha, along with a variety of other Brazilian cocktails. What is it?
Cachaca is Brazil’s national spirit, a distilled spirit made out of sugarcane juice. The juice is placed in huge copper stills, fermented, optionally aged, and distilled into the spirit we know and love. White cachaca is unaged, and yellow cachaca is aged. There’s also a deeply aged dark cachaca, but it’s less of a mixer and more of a spirit you enjoy on its own.
Cachaca, being a distilled spirit made out of sugarcane juice, means it has a lot in common with rum. Indeed, many think of it as “Brazilian rum,” but it’s really not. Cachaca is its own spirit; anything labeled “Brazilian rum” isn’t cachaca. While it’s close enough that you could use it to make a caipirinha if you absolutely can’t find cachaca, we still recommend getting the good stuff when you can.
The process of making cachaca comes from at least the 1500s and came from Portugal, along with the sugar production, the people, the language, and a lot of other things in Brazil.
Fun fact: due to centuries of production, periods of competition, and even illegalization, there are over two thousand different words used to refer to cachaca. Euphemisms like “heart-opener,” “holy water,” and “eye-wash” – all in Portuguese, of course – are just a few.
Does the brand of cachaca matter when you make a caipirinha? Sure, probably; different brands have different subtleties to their flavor profiles. But, especially up here in America, you often have to take what you can get since relatively little cachaca is exported at all, and what little is often ends up in Germany rather than the US.
How to Make a Basic Caipirinha
The basic caipirinha is a staple of just about every bar in Brazil and every Brazilian bar found abroad, including our drinks menu at Texas de Brazil. It’s actually very simple to make because there are only three ingredients.
- 2 ounces of cachaca
- 2 teaspoons of granulated white sugar
- 1 fresh lime, cut into wedges
- Ice, of course.
To make it, first put the ice and lime wedges in your glass and pour in the sugar. Muddle this; the sugar’s abrasive qualities help abrade the lime skin and release the flavorful and aromatic oils in the peel, as well as start to release the juices of the lime itself. For this reason, you really need the granulated sugar; don’t substitute it with simple syrup, honey, or another sweetener.
The traditional caipirinha is made in the glass. There’s no shaking, no straining, just assembly, muddling, stirring, and drinking. Of course, with millions of people making them, there are nearly as many techniques, so it’s hard to say there’s one “true” way to make the drink, but we generally prefer the traditional way. Others like something with a clearer presentation; that’s fine, but like a lot of variations we talk about, it’s not a true caipirinha.
Once muddled, add in the cachaca, give it a stir, and garnish with another wedge or wheel of lime.
Do you need to rim the glass? Not really. A lot of fancy folks and upscale bars will rim the glass with more sugar when they make a caipirinha, but it’s not necessary to the flavor or the presentation of the drink. It’s really more for presentation and for photography, which is why you see it online a lot more than you see it in person.
Generally, you want to use white/silver cachaca, which is the unaged version of cachaca, for a caipirinha. It lets the lime take the lead and brings in a bit of a grassy note in the finished beverage without dominating it with the darker flavors of aged cachaca.
With such a simple and pleasant beverage, there’s a lot you can do to expound upon it, change it up, and make it suit your tastes. Let’s talk about some variations!
Variations on the Humble Caipirinha
Sugar, lime, and cachaca; there are only three things you can do to change up this drink.
- You can change the base spirit.
- You can change the fruit flavor.
- You can add more to it to add complexity and depth.
You’ll find that these are the foundations of all of the variations we discuss.
What about changing the sugar? As we mentioned above, if you use a syrup or other non-abrasive sugar instead of white sugar, it’s not going to release as much flavor from the lime. You can get around this in different ways, of course, but there’s no real substitute for white sugar.
That said, if you want to use brown sugar, a more natural sugar like demerara, or another kind of sweetener, you’re free to do so. We like the classic, but the brilliance of bar beverages is that you can customize them to make whatever you prefer.
Truth be told, some people don’t like the slightly gritty feeling of sugar that didn’t dissolve in the drink and prefer the sweetness of simple syrup or a confectioner’s sugar instead. That’s certainly your prerogative, but it does remove the authenticity of the caipirinha.
Caipiroska
This is a simple 1:1 substitution of the base spirit. In this case, instead of using cachaca for the rum-like grassiness, you use vodka for the clear alcoholic punch.
The Smirnoff company registered this cocktail as a variation for obvious reasons.
Caipirao
This is another simple variation. Instead of using Brazilian cachaca, you use Licor Beirao, a spirit from Portugal.
Beirao is a relatively recently developed spirit but has quickly become one of the most popular spirits in Portugal. It’s a robust liqueur made by a double distillation involving seeds and herbs, including mint, cinnamon, cardamom, and lavender. There are a total of thirteen different herbs and seeds used in the drink, and the exact recipe is held secret by the producers in Portugal.
Caipirissima
If you don’t have cachaca but you want the next best thing, use rum.
This name is trademarked by Bacardi, makers of some of those rums; since cachaca is a specific spirit, they couldn’t call their version of the cocktail a caipirinha, so they picked a different name.
Other Spirits
Pretty much any spirit you want to use can work with a little sugar and lime. People make versions of caipirinha with nearly anything, including imports like sake from Japan or even just wine.
Nobody can stop you if you want to put a lime and some sugar into whatever alcohol you enjoy the most!
Caipifrutas
Now we get to the second kind of variation: changing out, or adding to, the fruit component of the caipirinha. These are generally called caipifrutas, and they’re made the same way as a caipirinha, but there’s usually another fruit involved in addition to the lime. Sometimes, it’s even in place of the lime. They also frequently used crushed ice to add to the abrasiveness and make something almost like a smoothie out of it.
What are good fruits to try? Whatever you like! In Brazil, you can fairly easily find it made with fruits like tangerine, kiwi, passion fruit, pineapple, lemon, grape, and mango. You can also find more local exotic fruits like caja and caju, and even some stranger options, though many of those are less commonly available, especially in bars.
The key to any fruity variation of the caipirinha is making sure you have good, flavorful fruits. If you’re buying whatever fruits you get at the grocery store, you can end up with underripe pineapples or watery strawberries or what have you, and you’ll end up with a disappointing iteration on the caipirinha that leaves you wishing for something more.
Technically speaking, all of these different fruit combinations can have their own unique names, as well. Abacaxi caipirinha, for example, is the kind with pineapple because that’s just the Portuguese word for pineapple. There’s no real need to faff about with different terms like that, though; just specify the fruit in the name of the drink, and you’ve done your duty.
You can also mix up multi-fruit versions.
- Berry caipirinha using raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, and strawberry along with the lime.
- Carnival caipirinha using mango and lime.
- Ginger and fig caipirinha using figs and slices of the ginger root, which has a bright, fresh flavor compared to dried ginger.
Another variation is the milho verde caipirinha, which uses sweetcorn. Americans are usually pretty hesitant about something like this since sweetcorn is more of a vegetable associated with butter and salt than it is a fruit associated with lime and sugar, but it can be quite tasty if you can get over that skepticism.
More Additions to the Caipirinha Recipe
There are some other variations you can do to the caipirinha by adding other ingredients.
Along the lines of fruit, herbs are a common addition. Two of the most popular are basil (when paired with fruit like strawberries, mostly) and mint. Mint goes very well with cachaca and lime, so it’s no surprise that a lot of “basic” caipirinhas have mint in them as well.
Some people like to add another spirit to the mix as well. For example, we’ve seen people mix in some Aperol, a flavored rum, or even a dash of wine, though that last one is pretty rare.
You can also use another Brazilian favorite to make something similar but different: the Batida. This drink uses cachaca and fruit juice, but it also adds condensed milk for a creamier drink. Some are even augmented with coconut milk for a more tropical flavor. Tasty!
The Perfect Pairing
Whether you want a caipirinha played straight or you want a variation far enough removed that it’s hard to call it the same drink, there’s something for you with cachaca as the base. And, when it comes time to find something to pair it with, might we recommend churrasco? The traditional Brazilian barbecue you find at Texas de Brazil is an incredible way to experience both Brazilian culture and Brazilian culinary tradition.
With dozens of locations across the country, we’re always ready to have you stop by. Whether you’re enjoying our churrasco, browsing the salad area, or making a drink order, we know you’ll love what you find here.
