🇧🇷 Brazilian Cuisine

Caipirinha

Lime Cachaça Cocktail

Prep Time 5 min
Servings 1
Difficulty Easy

Brazil's national cocktail — muddled fresh lime with sugar and cachaça over crushed ice, deceptively simple and dangerously refreshing, with the herbaceous bite of sugarcane spirit cutting through the citrus.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. 1 Cut the lime into 8 small wedges, removing the white pith from the center (it causes bitterness).
  2. 2 Place lime wedges in a sturdy glass. Add sugar.
  3. 3 Muddle firmly but not aggressively — press and twist to extract juice and oils without shredding the peel.
  4. 4 Add cachaça and stir to dissolve the sugar.
  5. 5 Fill the glass with crushed ice and stir once more.
  6. 6 Serve immediately in the same glass. Do not strain — the lime pieces stay in the drink.

Did You Know?

The caipirinha originated as a medicinal remedy — lime, garlic, and honey mixed with cachaça was a folk cure for the Spanish Flu in rural São Paulo in 1918. The garlic and honey were eventually dropped.