No More Newfangled Vodka or Kiwi Twists: It's Back to Basics for the Caipirinha

03/23/2016 - 08h58

In Brazil this year cocktails are all the rage. But where among the cosmos and the manhattans is the iconic caipirinha?

"Why aren't we making the same fuss over a caipirinha as we are over a negroni? People think you can just bung in a load of ice, cachaça and lime and that's that," says Carolina Corrêa Bastos, part-owner of São Paulo based Jiquitaia restaurant and famed for her perfectly mixed caiprinhas.

Against this backdrop, two new bars have sprung up in Sao Paulo. Their mission: to save the classic drink from oblivion.

Carolina is getting ready for the inauguration of the Bar do Jiquitaia. The offshoot will serve typical Brazilian snacks, such as free-range chicken coxinha and pork scratchings, and... caipirinhas. "The secret is using freshly cut lime, a good brand of cachaça and not overloading on the sugar," she says.

With similar intentions, bartender Jean Ponce (who previously worked at chic São Paulo restaurant D.O.M) will open his new bar above 12 Burger & Bistrô, in the Pinheiros district, sometime between May and July this year.

"Even today the caipirinha suffers from the prejudice and disrespect people have for its ingredients," says Ponce, who criticises the lack of standards regulating the drink's preparation.

"There is this dogma that cachaça is really strong, but things are gradually changing. Bar staff have an important role to play didactically in this change of attitude" claims Carolina Bastos, who will not be serving caipirosca (made with vodka) in the new bar.

Derivan de Souza, bartender for more than 40 years, recalls how in the 1970s and 80s the caipirinha fell out of favour among "the social elite". People might have drunk it in their private swimming pools, but it was cocktail non grata in public, so much so that cachaça was banished from the liquors lining the shelves of bars," he remembers.

Translated by GILLIAN SOPHIE HARRIS

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	Bruno Santos/Folhapress
	"The secret [of a good caipirinha] is using freshly cut lime and a good brand of cachaça" says Carolina Corrêa Bastos