When talking about Brazilian cuisine, it’s important to consider every aspect of a meal. We’ve talked a lot about the meats here for obvious reasons – we are a steakhouse, after all. We’ve also covered a few other topics, like sweets (and we do so love our sweets) and sauces.
Last week, we also covered the cocktails of Brazil, our favorite alcoholic beverages, mostly centered around the iconic Brazilian rum called Cachaca. Today, we wanted to look at the beverages you can drink when you’re underage or driving, the non-alcoholic drinks that accompany our meals, and don’t rely on the booze to make them special.
What’s on offer? Read on to find out.
Table of Contents
Caipirinhas
Caipirinhas is by far the most famous cocktail made in Brazil, and yes, it’s made out of cachaca. That means it’s not an appropriate entry for a list of non-alcoholic beverages. There’s a whole long history to the drink, and it’s one of the most popular drinks in Brazil, with good reason. Sweet, tart, tangy, with the kick of cachaca; what’s not to love?
Well, the alcohol, for one thing. Some people don’t like alcohol, some can’t have it, and some need to sit it out from time to time. When that’s you, and you still want to try a good old-fashioned caipirinha, there’s still an option for you: the virgin caipirinha.
What goes into a virgin (or non-alcoholic) caipirinha?
- Half a lime, diced
- Half a small lemon, diced
- Half a small orange, diced
- A single sugar cube or teaspoon of granulated sugar
- Ginger beer
- A sprig of mint
Just like with the alcoholic version, you need to put the fruit, rind and all, in your glass and muddle it with the sugar. The sugar crystals help abrade the peels and release the delicious essential oils, which is where a lot of the flavor of the drink comes from. Once you’ve done that, top it up with ginger beer (a close enough non-alcoholic option to cachaca) and garnish with the mint. The end result is a gingery, citrusy, slightly sweet drink that satisfies all of your tropical fantasies.
Guarana
If you’re American, when you see the word guarana, you probably associate it more with an ingredient in energy drinks than you do with a drink itself. So what is it?
The guarana plant, paullinia cupana, is a fruit native to the Amazonian basin. It’s in the same scientific family as a bunch of other semi-exotic tropical fruits, as well as a couple of more local trees you might have heard of. Other plants in the same general family include the Ackee fruit, the Lychee, the rambutan, and the Alupag. More local to us here in America are the buckeye, the horse chestnut, and the maple. That’s right; maple trees and maple syrup are cousins to guarana.
Of course, when it comes down to individual species, they’re as different as they are similar. Guarana produces small red fruits. When ripe, they split and reveal their seeds, which are black with a white outer pith. The seeds are actually almost distressingly similar to eyes, so much so that natives of the Amazon developed a whole origin myth surrounding them. That’s a bit outside the scope of our post today, though.
Guarana is used in energy drinks because of those seeds, which are higher in caffeine than coffee beans. Guarana powder is often used as a way to include caffeine in a drink without necessarily disclosing that it has caffeine, though the FDA isn’t too kind to the brands that use that technique.
In Brazil, though, guarana doesn’t just refer to the fruit; it refers to a type of soft drink. Carbonated soda with guarana extract as the primary flavor is very common, and it’s often thought of as Brazil’s favorite soft drink. The beverage tastes crisp, like an apple, with a berry-like aftertaste. Normally, it’s bitter, too, but modern sodas remove that astringency through a process before it’s added to the soda.
There are a bunch of different brands of guarana soda, all with their own variations on the flavor, so try a few of them and see if you like them!
Limonada Suica
Known more simply as Swiss lemonade, you might be surprised to learn that limonada suica isn’t actually lemonade at all. It’s lime-based, sort of like caipirinha, but that’s about where the similarity ends. The simplest form of the drink is lime, water, sugar, and ice, lime a limeade, and it’s all blended up until it’s frothy, leaving you with a creamy whipped drink with a sweet lime flavor.
One popular variation of the Brazilian Swiss Lemonade uses condensed milk as well. This version is a lot thicker and heavier, with a creamy flavor and texture. If you make it with condensed milk, you leave off the sugar, since condensed milk is sweet enough as it is.
If you’ve ever had a citrus-based milkshake or even something like an orange creamsicle, you’re in the right ballpark with the flavor profile. Sounds tasty, right?
Vitamina de Abacate
In Portuguese, the word “vitamina” is essentially just the word for a smoothie. In Brazil, a smoothie is generally what we in America would call a fruit smoothie. They’re often simple and bright and often uncomplicated: just some blended fruits, a bit of milk and sugar, and possibly some ice to keep it chilled.
Vitamina de Abacate is one of the more interesting smoothie recipes you can find. Down in Brazil, the humble avocado is thought of as a fruit rather than a vegetable. We in America tend to use it as an addition to sandwiches or on eggs with breakfast, treating it like a savory ingredient because of its richness and fat content. In Brazil, it’s viewed as a fruit and sweetened instead.
So, vitamina de abacate is an avocado smoothie, usually made with some lime alongside sugar and milk, for a sweet and slightly tangy smoothie. Once you’ve tried sweet avocado, you might have trouble thinking of it as a vegetable again.
Cajuina
Cajuina is another beverage we like in Brazil, though it’s hard to find outside of the country and has a little bit of an exotic taste. Not everyone likes it, but if you do, you can’t get enough.
You know all about cashews, right? The curved, rich nuts are a staple of Brazilian exports, but there’s a lot more to them than the typical American has ever seen. See, the cashew is just one small part of the actual fruit of the cashew tree. Cashews grow on large, apple-like fruits, which produce the cashew nut as a seed as they grow. The cashew fruit itself, called a cashew apple, is also edible and can be eaten fresh or cooked. It’s used in a couple of spirits in Brazil, too.
Cashew apples can be juiced, and the juice is itself a tasty beverage. It can be a little astringent, similar to guarana, but it’s fairly easy to remove that astringency, so most cashew juice is made from fruits that were steamed and had those compounds broken down.
Cajuina is simple cashew juice. It may be cooked somewhat, so it has a bit of a caramelized hint to the flavors, but otherwise, it’s mostly just a sweet juice. It doesn’t really resemble the nuts you’re familiar with since it’s made from a different part of the plant; instead, it’s a lot like something like pear juice, a fairly sweet, otherwise neutral drink.
There’s also a carbonated cajuina sold under the same name, so you can really take your pick which one you prefer.
Umbuzada
Since Brazil is the home of the Amazon, you expect a lot of tropical flavors, and especially exotic fruits you can’t get anywhere else. Cashew apples are one good example. They’re super tasty, but since they’re very soft and fragile, they don’t travel well, so you can’t get them anywhere but where they’re locally grown.
Umbu is another example. The umbu is a kind of Brazilian plum with a sweet, tart, slightly acidic flavor. That fruit’s juice, blended with a bit of milk and sugar, makes the umbuzada beverage. It doesn’t look like much, just a yellowish juice with a bit of cloudiness to it, but it’s a unique flavor you can only really get in Brazil. It’s especially popular in the northeast areas of Brazil, such as Bahia.
Alua
Alua is also a beverage on our alcoholic cocktails list, though it’s an honorable mention. Why? It’s a unique sort of spiced fruit bubbly made in Brazil by letting corn or pineapple (yes, either one) ferment in the tropical heat. Sometimes, it can even be made with stale bread! It doesn’t ferment for long, though, so it’s such a low alcohol content that it’s barely even noticeable.
Alua is usually made by taking a jug of water, putting in pineapple rinds or crushed corn, some brown sugar, and spices like ginger and cloves. This is then sealed and left to ferment for a day or two in the heat. It’s very simple – you can even make it yourself if you’re in the right kind of climate – and it’s also flexible and made with different fruits and spices depending on where you are in Brazil.
The fermentation creates a sort of natural fizziness, carbonation without carbonation. It’s a bright, sour, spiced beverage that is unlike just about anything else you can find. Where else can you find a tasty drink made out of bread?
Simple Juices
In tropical, sunny Brazil, there are all sorts of simple and tasty juices you can drink when you aren’t feeling a fancier flavor.
One fine example is just agua de coco or coconut water. That stereotypical tropical image of a coconut with a hole cut into it, a straw, and an umbrella poking out? We do that; it’s real. The biggest difference is just that we often use unripe coconuts (the green ones, not the fuzzy brown ones) because they have more water in them. It’s sweet, tasty, and simple.
Another example is caldo de cana, also known simply as garapa. This is, basically, sugar water, except it’s sugar juice. That is, it’s made out of peeled sugarcane, which has been pressed to extract the juice. It’s wildly sweet! We’re talking serious sugar. 40-50% of the weight of the drink is pure sucrose.
Alternative Cocktails
Another option you always have on the table is non-alcoholic versions of the staple Brazilian cocktails. These tend to be a little harder to find, mostly just because we love our cachaca, but it’s not unheard of for virgin versions of the more famous cocktails to make their rounds.
Here at Texas de Brazil, we can only offer a few of these delicious beverages. From passionfruit punch to tropical drinks, we try to bring more of the atmosphere of Brazil than the specific ingredients, sometimes. It’s tricky, because several of the most important ingredients in Brazilian drinks are either impossible to import or extremely expensive to do, for an acquired taste most people aren’t necessarily going to enjoy.
If you want to try cashew apples, alua, or one of the other more local beverages, your best bet is going to be booking a trip to Brazil.
If you want a selection of the best, to accompany you with a whole churrasco experience here in the states, you’ve come to the right place. We specialize in churrasco, the tantalizing Brazilian BBQ, and we’re always trying to bring more interesting and exotic elements of Brazilian culture to a wider audience. It deserves appreciation!
So, if you want some delicious meat, a great and unique dining experience, and a handful of authentic Brazilian staples like feijoada and picanha, find your nearest Texas de Brazil location and stop by. If you’ve come by before and want to visit again, we encourage you to sign up for our eClub, where you can get special coupons and deals you can’t find anywhere else.
