Caipirinha

Caipirinha is Brazil's national cocktail. It's made with lime, sugar and "cachaça" which is a hard liquor distilled from sugarcane. You can get one at any bar, or at eating establishments that serve alcohol, or even at the beach. We finally tried our first caipirinha after being in Brazil for 19 days.

Many online reviews rave about the caipirinhas at Academia da Cachaça located in Leblon so that's where we went. Academia da Cachaça serve the traditional caipirinha made with lime but also caipirinhas made with pineapple, passionfruit and other seasonal fruits. We ordered one with lime ($R 12.50) and one with passionfruit ($R 17.50).

The traditional lime caipirinha is reminiscent of a margarita or pisco sour but not half as good. The taste of the cachaça is just downright unpleasant. I preferred the passionfruit caipirinha just because the passionfruit hid the taste of the cachaça better. Overall, I'm not sure it's an experience I need to repeat.

The caipirinhas at the Academia weren't large - the ones we saw on the beach were twice as tall - but on an empty stomach, boy did they pack a punch. We both felt pretty zoosed after we drank them down so we staggered over to the Pão de Açúcar across the street and ended up ordering a pizza margherita to soak up some of the alcohol.Read more