Cachaça Spritzer

The weeks have completely flown by for me this summer, so when I blinked and discovered it was Sunday again, I decided to make time to shake, rattle, and pour. The pantry was a little bare, and I didn’t want to again default to tequila, so I settled on making a spritzer of some kind with the chilled rosé in the fridge. It was a decent plan, too, until I realized I didn’t have the other needed ingredients. What I did have, however, was cachaça (pronounced ka-SHA-sa), the official spirit of Brazil, made from fermented sugarcane.

According to the Internets, despite cachaça being Brazil’s official sprit, The United States Alcohol Tax and Trade Bureau didn’t recognize it as a distinctive product of Brazil and required the word “rum” to appear on the front label of all imported bottles—even though cachaça is made from sugarcane (not molasses) and predates rum by an entire century! That all changed in 2013, and cachaça is now recognized distinctive product of Brazil. W00t! Here’s what we made with it…

Ingredients

  • 2 oz cachaça (we used Leblon)
  • 1/2 oz simple syrup
  • 2 wedges of lemon
  • 2 wedges of ruby red grapefruit
  • Dry rosé, to top
  • Nasturtium blossom, to garnish

Rim a martini glass with lemon juice, and dip it in a little sugar. Next, pour the cachaça and simple syrup into a cocktail shaker, add the lemon and grapefruit wedges, and muddle until the juices fully release from the fruit and the citrus peels are bruised. Next, fill the shaker with ice, secure the lid, and shake until chilled. Strain into the prepared martini glass, and top with a splash of rosé. The final touch? A nasturtium from the garden. Pretty!

The verdict: Pretty darn good. Not overly sweet at all, which is always my worry. In fact, the sugared rim wasn’t even overwhelming, thanks to the slight bitterness from the grapefruit oils and the dryness of the rosé. Refreshing to the last drop and enjoyed by all.

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