Cachaca 51 Pirassununga – Toast Fried (2024)

FAQs

How much alcohol is in cachaca 51? ›

Pirassununga Cachaça 51

Sugar syrup is added to the cane spirit and the strength is cut to 40% alc./vol. with de-mineralised water.

La 51 is a brand of cachaça marketed and produced by Companhia Müller de Bebidas. It was founded in 1959 by Guilherme Müller, a Brazilian of German origin. In the 1990s, it began to be exported under the name Cachaça 51 or Pirassununga (the town where the company is headquartered).

Cachaça 51, the perfect taste and aroma for the Brazilian original Caipirinha co*cktail. Aromas of honey cream, grilled banana leaf, and delicate spice follow through on a soft, round entry to a mildly sweet medium body with hot peppercorn and toasted meringue notes.

Cachaça offers a range of flavors, with some types showcasing fruity and floral notes, while others have a more robust and earthy profile. The aging process in various types of wooden casks further enhances the taste, imparting rich and complex flavors to the final product.

The main distinction tends to be purity. Cachaca is distilled to a lower strength than the 90-plus-per-cent alcohol level of most white spirits, such as vodka and light rum (though like those other spirits it ultimately is usually diluted to about 40 per cent prior to bottling).

The major difference between cachaça and rum is that rum is usually made from molasses, a by-product after a refinery boils the cane juice to extract as much sugar crystal as possible, while cachaça is made from fresh sugarcane juice, fermented and distilled.

Most cachaça on the market has a small amount of sugar added post-distillation to create a sweeter style. Commonly this is less than 6g/l, and cachaça dosed with more than this is labelled as adoçada.

Flavors of Cachaça

Industrial cachaças are rough, chemical-tasting, and sometimes even oily. Smaller-batch unaged cachaças often tasty grassy or funky, like a rhum agricole or a bianco tequila.

Chances are high you encountered Brazil's national drink, the Caipirinha, if you've traveled to the South American country. Refreshing and easy to make, the co*cktail contains fresh lime juice, sugar and cachaça. The latter is a spirit as central to Brazilian identity as samba, soccer and carnival.

As with any spirit, cachaça can be drunk straight, and the higher the quality of your cachaça, the better your sipping experience will be. Sipping it straight allows the complex, dimensional spirit to shine without being overshadowed by other ingredients.

Should cachaça be refrigerated? ›

It depends on your tastes. On its own, cachaça can be consumed neat, on ice, or with a bit of water to open its palate and nose. You may prefer to chill some cachaça in the refrigerator or your freezer.

But the co*cktail's popularity, Goncalves says, has encouraged cachaça producers to churn out cheap, impure cachaças and for bartenders to mix them into their drinks, increasing the chance of a hangover. In Brazil, the world's top sugarcane producer, there are more than 2,700 different brands of cachaça, Goncalves said.

Jambú-infused cachaça is bitter and a bit grassy, and newcomers to the drink often grimace at first taste. But seconds later something happens: the liquor's harshness gives way to a gentle tingling, then numbness, first on the tip of the tongue, then to the lips and the back of the throat.

By law, cachaça must be produced in Brazil and contain alcohol of 38 to 48 percent by volume, while rum can be made anywhere and is distilled to a much higher ABV. Cachaça has been called spicy, sweet, fruity, vegetal, and even funky.

Cachaça vs Agricole Rhum - Though they are largely similar, there are some tanigle differences between cachaça and agricole rhum, other than where they're made. Primarily, many artisanal cachaças are distilled in a pot still, while agricole is typically made with a column still.

The majority of cachaça is 40 percent alcohol by volume (ABV, 80 proof). Some producers choose to bottle their specialty cachaças at a higher proof. As is the case with whiskey, this means you're getting a liquor with a fuller flavor.