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Like the vast majority of spirits (whisky, tequila, rum, brandy),  Cachaça is usually aged in Oak Casks.

But besides the vanilla enhancing wood, brazilian law allows Cachaça to be aged in a infinity of other types of wood.

A wood cask with less then 700L is were the cachaça must be aged, if it is bigger it will only be “armazenada” (rested).

A Premium cachaça must de aged for at least 1 year, and an Extra Premium for at least 3 years.

The cachaça is rested or aged, be it in wood or in steel, to round its flavors so it isn’t rough and “hot”, and also to cut off the strong and funky smell, but besides that, the wood have strong influence in the flavors and aroma of the final product.

You can read what barrel aging does to a spirit here.

The most common woods used are: Oak, Amburana and Bálsamo.

But there are also: Amendoim(Peanut), Jequitibá (cariniana), Ipê Amarelo, Pau Brasil (Brazil wood), Jacarandá, Eucalyptus and many others!

Oak is well known, giving vanilla smell and taste.

Amburana is my favorite, it add a beautiful smell, really sweet and let you wondering about it, also add a sweet taste.

And Bálsamo add anise flavour/smell, which I’m not really into. I have never tried, but I have a bottle here and will give it a sip to report to you.

It seems that Weber Haus is exported to some places, they have Oak, Amburana and Unaged Cachaça, all of them looks really good and they are always at magazine top lists.

Later I’ll see some more brands available wordwide. But please stay away from 51,Pitu and others popular, because they are the worst thing that we have…

We brazilians should be very proud of our national liquor.