Cachaça, a sugarcane spirit, is at the heart of a growing national drink trend

or 21 years I’ve watched this lovely little cocktail coyly circle the bar hoping to be noticed. When you marry a Brazilian, the potent lime and sugarcane cocktail automatically becomes the house drink. But it’s only in the last year or two that the caipirinha has been showing up on local bar menus.

A kissing cousin of the Cuban mojito, the caipirinha (kai-PEE-reen-yuh) is considered the national drink of Brazil. Loosely translated, it means “peasant’s drink,” “little man from the country” or “yokel.” I’d been drinking them for so long I had to stop and think out loud: “So what’s the exact translation for caipirinha?””*

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