Ipanema Caipirinha
A refreshing cocktail where lime muddled with sugar releases its oils, lengthened with cachaça and crushed ice. Tart, sweet, sun-drenched.
A refreshing cocktail where lime muddled with sugar releases its oils, lengthened with cachaça and crushed ice. Tart, sweet, sun-drenched.
Waiter, uma caipirinha! You crush the limão with the sugar — gently, like you stroke the strings — to awaken the peel's perfume, never the bitterness. You drown it in cachaça and crushed ice, and you stir. It was at the counter of Veloso, with this misted glass in hand, that I watched the most beautiful girl in Ipanema walk by. The rest, as they say, became a song.
- •Cachaça (sugarcane spirit) — a good shot (base alcohol)
- •Lime (limão) — one, in wedges (acidity)
- •Cane sugar — to taste (sweetness)
- •Ice — crushed (chill)
Ipanema Caipirinha
A refreshing cocktail where lime muddled with sugar releases its oils, lengthened with cachaça and crushed ice. Tart, sweet, sun-drenched.
Why this dish? The national Brazilian cocktail, made with cachaça, lime, and sugar, is the soul of the Ipanema bars where Jobim composed. In one of them, the Veloso, 'Garota de Ipanema' was born. The caipirinha is bossa nova in a glass.
Waiter, uma caipirinha! You crush the limão with the sugar — gently, like you stroke the strings — to awaken the peel's perfume, never the bitterness. You drown it in cachaça and crushed ice, and you stir. It was at the counter of Veloso, with this misted glass in hand, that I watched the most beautiful girl in Ipanema walk by. The rest, as they say, became a song.
Ingredients (period version)
- Cachaça (sugarcane spirit) — a good shot (base alcohol)
- Lime (limão) — one, in wedges (acidity)
- Cane sugar — to taste (sweetness)
- Ice — crushed (chill)
Ingredients
- Cachaça — 5 cl (base alcohol)
- Lime — 1 (acidity)
- Cane sugar (brown sugar) — 2 tsp (sweetness)
- Ice cubes — a handful (chill)
Method
- Wash the lime, cut it into wedges, removing the central white pith (bitter).
- Place the wedges and sugar in the bottom of a sturdy glass, and muddle gently to extract the juice and peel oils, without mashing into pulp.
- Add crushed ice up to the top of the glass.
- Pour in the cachaça, stir vigorously with a spoon, and serve immediately. (Non-alcoholic version for young people: replace cachaça with sparkling water — a 'limonada suíça'.)
How it was made : Cachaça, distilled since the 16th century in the sugar mills of the Northeast, was for a long time the people's alcohol, scorned by elites who preferred imported wine. The caipirinha supposedly comes from a peasant remedy (lemon, garlic, honey, and cachaça against the flu) from which the garlic was removed to make it a pleasure. Its name means 'little peasant woman'.
The contemporary twist : Vary with other fruits from the Carioca market — passion fruit (maracujá), pineapple, or mango — for a 'caipifruta', and always a virgin version for the family table.
Sources : Instituto Brasileiro da Cachaça (IBRAC), history of cachaça
Antônio Carlos Jobim · Charactorium