Caipirinha

Serve in a

Garnish:

Stirrer (spoon, wooden lolly stick or stick cut from sugar cane)

How to make:

1. Cut a ripe lime in half (from pole to pole) and remove the core from each half by cutting a cut a v-shaped grove. You'll need one-half of the lime per drink and this should be chopped into wedges and each wedge chopped in half before dropping the resulting 6 or 8 lime chunks into the base tin of a shaker.

2. Add 3 bar spoons powdered sugar (or ½oz / 15ml sugar syrup 2:1) and MUDDLE.

3. If using cubed ice straight from the freezer, add chilled water (or optionally add fruit of choice) and MUDDLE some more. If using watery ice then omit some or all of the water/juice.

4. When sure the lime's juice is fully extracted and the sugar dissolved, POUR the muddled fruit and sugar into serving glass (preferably a 30cl / 10oz highball glass).

5. POUR cachaça (stored in the freezer) into the shaker tin used to muddle and swirl to rinse tin before pouring cachaça into serving glass. STIR to mix with other ingredients.

6. If using cubed ice, crack (rather than crush) four to five large ice cubes using an Ice Tapper and drop into serving glass. STIR before topping with more ice and serve with a stirrer (but no straws).

Review:

If you are European or in North America you're probably used to this drink being served with crushed ice, but until you have tried it with cubed ice you have not really experienced a Caipirinha. Be sure to muddle the lime and sugar well and stir both before adding ice and after.

History:

For information on the history and other variations of the Caipirinha, please see our Caipirinha cocktail page.

Nutrition:

One serving of Caipirinha contains 134 calories.

Alcohol content:

• 1.4 standard drinks
• 23.46% alc./vol. (46.92° proof)
• 19.4 grams of pure alcohol