Caipirinha

Cachaça is Brazil’s sugar-cane spirit — distilled from fresh cane juice rather than molasses, so it tastes greener and grassier than rum. White rum makes a decent stand-in, but the funky-fresh edge of real cachaça IS the caipirinha. With vodka it becomes a caipiroska.

Granulated (or superfine) sugar, muddled with the lime wedges — the abrasive crystals help press oils out of the lime peel, which is where much of the drink’s character lives. Syrup works but you lose that peel-oil magic.

A classic Caipirinha calls for 60 ml (2 oz) Cachaça, 1 lime, cut into 8 wedges Lime, 2 teaspoons White sugar. That single-serve spec scales cleanly — the recipe above converts it to oz and multiplies it for 2–4 drinks.

A standard Caipirinha is roughly 27% ABV once mixed (before ice melt softens it further). That makes it spirit-forward — closer to a Martini than to a beer, so sip it slowly.

A Caipirinha is muddled and built right in the serving glass — press the fresh ingredients gently to release juice and aromatic oils, then build the drink on top. No shaker needed.

Serve a Caipirinha in a rocks glass (old fashioned glass), packed with crushed ice.

One Caipirinha has approximately 170 calories, estimated from the standard spec above. Bigger pours, extra syrup or sweetened mixers raise that number quickly.