Walk into a bar in São Paulo and ask for a Caipirinha, and nobody asks which cachaca you want. The bottle is already standing there. It has been standing there for decades, with the same red number on the label and the same green smell of freshly pressed cane.

The expert's description

Cachaca 51 Premium Brasil Spirit is an unaged Cachaca column distilled from freshly pressed sugarcane juice at Companhia Müller de Bebidas and bottled at 40%.

The distillery sits in Pirassununga in the state of São Paulo, a couple of hours inland from the coast, and since 1959 the company has built the brand into the best-selling one in Brazil. A second plant at Cabo de Santo Agostinho in Pernambuco covers the north of the country. Continuous column distillation is what makes that scale possible, and it is also what gives 51 its even, predictable profile from bottle to bottle.

Brazilian law is precise about what cachaca is: fermented and distilled sugarcane juice, bottled between 38 and 48 percent. The requirement for juice, rather than for molasses out of the sugar refinery, is the actual border with rum. It is why 51 tastes of the field and not of syrup, even though both drinks trace back to the same plant.

51 is a branca, a clear cachaca with no time in wood. No vanilla, no colour, no cask spice getting in the way. What it offers instead is a softer, less peppery distillate than many other unaged cachacas, and that is exactly why it ended up as the default behind the bar, where the lime and the sugar need room of their own.

Tasting notes

Nose

Cane juice and cut grass, with a trace of ripe banana behind it. The alcohol prickles only slightly and there are no sharp edges.

Palate

Soft and lightly sweet. The cane sits in the middle of the tongue with a green, juicy tone, and a thin floral note rises before the alcohol gives one short jab.

Finish

Short and clean. A light herbal tone hangs on for a moment and then the mouth is clear again. That is precisely the sort of finish a drink built on lime wants.

Specifications

Name: Cachaca 51 Premium Brasil Spirit 70 cl 40%
Distillery: Companhia Müller de Bebidas
Region/Country: Pirassununga, São Paulo, Brazil
Type: Cachaca
ABV: 40%
Size: 70 CL
Distillation method: Column distilled from freshly pressed sugarcane juice
Serving suggestion: In a Caipirinha with lime and cane sugar, or in a Rabo de Galo with red vermouth

Flavour profile

Green · Sugarcane · Soft · Lightly sweet · Clean

Did you know?

Roughly one in three bottles of cachaca sold in Brazil is a 51. In the state of São Paulo alone the brand accounts for more than half of everything drunk, and the bottle has reached more than fifty countries.

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In Pernambuco the rivers run towards the Atlantic through cane fields that have been there since colonial times. Down in the water lives a small freshwater prawn the locals call pitu. It gave the house its name, and it still sits there in bright red on every single label.

The expert's description

Cachaca Pitu Do Brasil Premium Brasil Spirit is an unaged Cachaca made from freshly pressed sugarcane juice in Pernambuco in north-eastern Brazil and bottled at 38%.

The company was founded in 1938 in Vitória de Santo Antão, an old sugar town inland from Recife. The name comes from Engenho Pitu, the sugar estate where it all began, and the prawn in the river named first the estate and later the spirit. Pitú is today the largest cachaca exporter in Brazil, and for a great many drinkers this bottle is the first cachaca they ever held.

Cachaca is made from the juice of the cane, pressed and fermented while it is still fresh. Rum works the other way round and generally starts from molasses, the heavy syrup left behind once the sugar has been drawn out. Two different starting points, two different flavour pictures: the cachaca keeps the field in it, while the rum tastes of the refinery.

Pitú is a clear cachaca with no time in wood. There is no cask to round the edges off, so the raw material stands right at the front: green cane juice, a dry peppery note and the faintly soapy floral edge typical of the style. The house names three things as the whole of its production, the cane, the water and the yeast, and that recipe has run unchanged for decades.

Tasting notes

Nose

Freshly pressed cane, close to biting into a raw stalk. A light floral tone sits behind it, along with a hint of wet stone.

Palate

Dry and direct. The cane juice arrives first with a green, almost grassy sweetness, then the alcohol takes hold with black pepper and a sharp mineral edge.

Finish

Short and clean. The pepper drops away quickly and what remains is a dry, green tone with enough backbone to stand up to lime and sugar.

Specifications

Name: Cachaca Pitu Do Brasil Premium Brasil Spirit 70 cl 38%
Distillery: Pitú
Region/Country: Vitória de Santo Antão, Pernambuco, Brazil
Type: Cachaca
ABV: 38%
Size: 70 CL
Distillation method: Made from freshly pressed sugarcane juice
EAN no.: 4000269003428
Serving suggestion: In a Caipirinha with lime and cane sugar, or in a Batida shaken with fresh fruit juice

Flavour profile

Green · Sugarcane · Fresh · Peppery · Dry

Did you know?

Pitú makes more than cane spirit. Since 2007 the house has also had its own vodka, Bolvana, on the books, and over the years a lime expression and a cola version have come out of the plant in Vitória de Santo Antão as well.

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Canaviais Cachaça is a high-quality Brazilian cachaça made from freshly pressed sugarcane juice, giving it a clean, full-bodied, and authentic flavour profile. This classic spirit from Brazil is known as the heart of the famous Caipirinha cocktail, but can also be enjoyed neat or in creative cocktails where its natural sweetness and fresh grassy notes truly shine.

The aroma offers fresh notes of sugarcane, citrus, and light tropical fruit, while the taste is smooth, round, and lively with a clean finish. Canaviais Cachaça is distilled with respect for tradition, delivering a true taste of Brazil in every glass.

Serving suggestion: Perfect for Caipirinha, Batida, or as a base in exotic long drinks. Best served chilled for a fresher experience.

Producer: Canaviais
Name: Canaviais
Country: Brazil
Type: Brazilian Cachaça
ABV: 40%
Volume: 75 cl

The hills around Ivoti are green in a way the rest of Brazil is not. German settlers arrived here in the 1800s, put up timber-framed houses and brought their copper with them. Weber Haus Black has spent three years in the kind of quiet that only exists between an oak cask and a piece of Brazilian bálsamo wood.

The expert's description

Weber Haus Black 3 year Organic Brazil Cachaca is an Organic Cachaca matured for two years in French oak casks and one year in Bálsamo casks, bottled at 40%.

Weber Haus sits in Ivoti in Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state of Brazil, where the Weber family grows its own sugarcane organically. The cane is cut and pressed the same day, and it is the fresh juice that ferments. That is precisely where the line to rum is drawn, since rum is almost always built on molasses, a by-product of sugar refining. It is also why even an aged cachaca keeps a green, vegetal core no rum can imitate.

The cask history comes in two stages and explains the name. First two years in French oak, where the spirit picks up vanilla, pale caramel and a dry spice note. Then a year in casks of bálsamo, a Brazilian hardwood carrying an aromatic resin, which lays a sweet, almost balsamic tone over the oak and pulls the colour deep and dark. The pairing of French and Brazilian wood is what gives the bottle its double character.

The entire production is certified organic, from field to bottling. Weber Haus distils in copper pot stills in small volumes, and the house works systematically with different Brazilian timbers across its releases. Black is the most approachable of the dark ones, and it works both as a sipping spirit and as the base under a heavier Caipirinha.

Tasting notes

Nose

Vanilla and pale caramel report first. Then something green and juicy that points straight back at the sugarcane, with resin, toasted cashew and a trace of ginger sitting behind it.

Palate

Full and faintly oily. Cashew and vanilla carry the weight while black pepper and allspice cut across. The green cane note runs underneath the sweetness the whole way and stops it turning cloying.

Finish

Long and dry. Pepper hangs on alongside a resinous tone from the bálsamo wood, while the vanilla drops away fairly quickly. At the very end the wood stands alone.

Specifications

Name: Weber Haus Black 3 year Organic Brazil Cachaca 70 cl 40%
Distillery: Weber Haus
Region/Country: Ivoti, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Type: Organic Cachaca
Age: 3 years
ABV: 40%
Size: 70 CL
Cask type: Two years in French oak casks and one year in Bálsamo casks
Distillation method: Copper pot distilled from freshly pressed sugarcane juice
EAN no.: 7898013032100
Serving suggestion: Neat at room temperature in a tulip glass, or in a Caipirinha with lime and cane sugar

Flavour profile

Spiced · Vanilla-sweet · Green · Woody · Dry

Did you know?

Bálsamo is more than a cask timber. The Myroxylon genus is known for its fragrant resin, used for centuries in perfume and in ointments. That same aromatic resin bleeds into the cachaca and gives the final twelve months of maturation their sweet, faintly medicinal undertone.

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