The Other Brazilian Cocktail

by Leighton Gage

The caipirinha (the name translates as “little country girl”) is Brazil’s great cocktail of success, the one that spilled across our borders into the bars of half the world.

But how many of you have heard of the Caju Amigo? (Friendly Cashew.)

Aha! Got you there, didn’t I? (Most of you anyway.)

Caju Amigos are, basically, a mixture of cachaça (can spirit, extracted from sugar cane juice as opposed to rum, extracted from molasses) and juice from the cashew fruit.

Yeah, that’s right. Fruit.

The cashew fruit is native to Brazil.

The name, in English, is derived from the name in Portuguese.

And the name in Portuguese originated with our Tupi Indians, who called the fruit acajú, which means “yellow head”.

See that little appendage on the bottom?

That’s a double shell.

Which contains the nut.

The shell is quite poisonous.

The nuts have to be carefully roasted to destroy the toxins.

But the fruit is anything but poisonous.

And it’s quite delicious.

I don’t think it’s likely you’ll  have a cashew tree in your garden.

Not unless you happen to live in Brazil, Goa, the Philippines, Panama, Mozambique, Malaysia, Thailand, or a few other places around the world where their cultivation is popular.

The juice, however, is a different story.

You can get it in many major cities.

I’ve bought it in New York, San Francisco, London, Paris and Rome.

And I always found it the same way: by going onto the internet and locating a shop that sold Brazilian products.

And once you score a bottle of the stuff, there’s nothing simpler than making a Caju Amigo. All you have to do is to mix 2 parts of cachaça, one part cashew juice and a teaspoon of sugar. That’s it!

Serve it in a tall, chilled glass, over ice. Use vodka, or even rum if you can’t get cachaça.

You can also put the ingredients on a blender – and call it a Batida de Cajú.

But, if you’re lucky enough to be able to get your hands on one of the fruits, then try it this way:

Put a slice in your mouth and chew it. Then take a shot of straight cachaça – and swallow the fruit and the drink at the same time.

That’s the way the machos do it.

Saude!

Cachaça - The Brazilian Tipple

by Leighton Gage

Brazilians have been making it for over five centuries. Non-Brazilians often confuse it with rum. But it’s not rum. Cachaça (called cane spirit in South Africa, and, as far as I know, produced only in our two countries) is distilled from fermented sugar cane juice. Rum is made from molasses.

Cachaça emerges from the still as clear as water, and is often consumed without aging.

The really good stuff, though, is aged in wooden barrels, thereby acquiring a pale amber color and a smoothness that allows it to be sipped like fine brandy.

Brazilproduces 1.5 billion liters (390 million gallons) of 

cachaça a year. There are a staggering number of brands.

And it’s so damned good that we drink almost all of it ourselves.

Mixed with a fruit juice, it’s called a batida. That also denotes a car crash.

And is what you’ll feel like you’ve been through should you overindulge.

Batidas come in as many varieties as there are fruits, everything from coconut to kiwi.

When it’s mixed with crushed limes and sugar we call it caipirinha, Portuguese for “a little country girl”.

Now the good news for those of you who aren’t lucky enough to live here: the stuff is beginning to pop up in retail outlets in North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

If you manage to snag a bottle, here’s my wife’s sure-fire recipe for the world’s best caipirinha:

1. Fill a glass with ice, pour in a healthy shot of cachaça and let it sit while you make the other preparations.
2. Choose a lime with a very smooth skin. (They’re the ones with the most juice.) Wash it thoroughly and cut off the ends. (They tend to be bitter.)
3. Slice it thin, put it into the bottom of a glass and add sugar to taste, usually two to four heaping teaspoons. (You can also use artificial sweetener.)
4. Take something you can use as a pestle and macerate the sugar and the lime slices. (This releases the oil from the skin - essential to the taste.) The wooden instrument you see above is called a pilão and is especially made for the purpose. Every Brazilian household has at least one.
5. Pour the chilled cachaça into the glass (holding back the ice) and stir with a spoon until the sugar is dissolved.
6. Add the ice you need to fill the glass, stir again – and drink.