Caipirinha

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Caipirinha
IBA Official Cocktail
National cocktail of Brazil
Type Cocktail
Primary alcohol by volume
Served On the rocks; poured over ice
Standard garnish lime
Standard drinkware
Old fashioned glass
IBA specified ingredients
Preparation Place lime and sugar into old fashioned glass and muddle (mash the two ingredients together using a muddler or a wooden spoon). Fill the glass with crushed ice and add the Cachaça.
Notes A wide variety of fresh fruits can be used in place of lime. In the absence of cachaça, vodka can be used.

Caipirinha (pronounced [kaj.pi.'ɾĩ.ɲɐ]) or [KIE-PEE-REEN-YAH]) is Brazil's national cocktail, made with cachaça (pronounced IPA[ˌkaˈʃasɐ] [KA-SHA-SA]), sugar and lime. Cachaça is Brazil's most common distilled alcoholic beverage. Like rum, it is made from sugarcane. Cachaça is made from sugarcane alcohol, obtained from the fermentation of sugarcane juice which is afterwards distilled.

Contents

[edit] Popularity

The caipirinha is the national cocktail of Brazil,[1] and is enjoyed in restaurants, bars, and many households throughout the country. Once almost unknown outside Brazil, the drink has become more popular and more widely available in recent years, in large part due to the rising availability of first-rate brands of cachaça outside Brazil.[2] The International Bartender Association has designated it as one of their Official Cocktails[3].

[edit] Name

The word "caipirinha" is the diminutive version of the word "caipira", which refers to someone from the countryside, being an almost exact equivalent of the American English hillbilly. The word may be used as either a masculine or a feminine noun, but when referring to this drink it is only feminine (usage of diminutives is conspicuous in Brazil). However, a Brazilian hardly ever thinks of a "country person" when ordering a "Caipirinha". In the mind of a Brazilian, the word "Caipirinha" is mostly associated with the drink itself.

[edit] Variations

Caipivodka (or Caipiroska), which uses vodka instead of cachaça.
  • Most variations of the caipirinha arise from the unavailability of some ingredient, such as the Caipivodka, (known as Caipiroska in the state of São Paulo) in which vodka substitutes for cachaça. "Caipirissima" is a caipirinha made with rum instead of cachaça; the word was coined for an advertisement for a popular rum brand on the late 70's, and it is not widely employed.
  • The term caipirinha is sometimes used to describe any cachaça and fruit juice drink (e.g. a "Passionfruit Caipirinha"), although the technical term for these types of drinks is batida.

[edit] See also

[edit] References and notes

  1. ^ Mackay, Jordan (August 10, 2006), "Made in Brazil", 7x7 Magazine, http://www.7x7.com/content/made-brazil .
  2. ^ Willey, Rob (February 2006). "Everyday with Rachael Ray". Cane and Able. http://www.belezabrazil.com/pages/pres_03.asp?id=70. Retrieved on 2007-01-14. "The caipirinha--a sour-sweet combination of crushed limes, sugar and cachaça—has become the darling of American bartenders, and first-rate cachaça is at last finding a place on American liquor-store shelves." 
  3. ^ "IBA Homepage". IBA. 2005-2007. http://www.iba-world.com/english/cocktails/. Retrieved on 2007-04-14. 

[edit] External links


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