10 typical Brazilian cocktails

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Brazil has much more cocktails to offer than the Caipirinha!

Get yourself a good bottle of Cachaça and mix these cocktails, while watching the Olympic games that will happen in Rio de Janeiro this week!

Many typical cocktails are usually served in Botecos as shooters as an eye-opener for blue colar workers . The following two come with this DNA in them, but we can agree that they taste better in mixed drinks served over rocks.

RABO DE GALO

This traditional mixture of Cachaça and Vermouth is thought to have been promoted by Cinzano in the 70’s.

60 mL Cachaça
25 mL sweet vermouth
2 dash Angostura (optional)

Stir and serve over ice.

Garnish with orange zest.

The name translates to Cock Tail and this is the ultimate aromatic cocktail from Brazil.

BOMBEIRINHO

Another famous cocktail that rose from the Boteco culture this is a mixture of Cachaça and redcurrant also very consume as a shooter. This is the epitome of the brazilian fruity cocktails.

60 mL Cachaça
30 mL lime juice
15 mL grenadine

Shaken and served over ice.

Garnish with a lime wedge.

This mixture is traditionally very sweet and in most cases basically consists of just Cachaça and grenadine (or redcurrant syrup).

Another tradition is housemade flavored cachaças, every region has a most common flavor that distillers from the region will make seasonally and include in their porfolio.

CACHAÇA COM MEL

The “Cachaça com mel” and the “Cachaça com mel e limão” are so common that many distillers have their own bottled version.

60 mL Cachaça
30 mL lime juice
15 mL runny honey

Dissolve the honey and shake.

Serve over ice.

GABRIELA

This is a liqueur made by infusing cinnamon and cloves in Cachaça, the name is a reference to writer Jorge Amado novel “Gabriela, Cravo e Canela”.

A typical cocktail using Gabriela liqueur is the Jorge Amado. It was invented in Paraty city by the time the novel was being recorded as a soap opera in 1988.

60 mL Gabriela (Cinnamon-clove cachaça liqueur)
1 passion fruit
30 mL lime juice

Tradicionally made as a Caipirinha by muddling the fruits with the booze and then adding ice this cocktail might benefit from a fine strain.

In Bahia it is also very common to have hundreds of flavored Cachaças to mix à la minute depending on guest need, this tradition is called Farmacinha (little Pharmacy).

Typical flavors are: cloves, cinnamon, Catuaba, Jatobá (corbaril) wood & ginger.

QUENTÃO

This hot beverage is typically served during winter months of June and July, specially during Festa Junina festivities. The name literally means Very Hot.

This is the upgraded version of a Hot Toddy, generally made in big batches. Every family has their own recipe, but the main components are Cachaça, water, sugar and spices (cloves, cinnamon and ginger mainly).

3 parts Cachaça
4 parts spiced tissane (ginger, cloves, cinnamon mainly)
2 parts orange juice
1 part brown sugar syrup

Some highballs also are very popular.

Cachaça & Guaraná

Guaraná is an amazonian fruit much used in typical beverages and mainly in carbonated soft drinks. The name Guaraná in Tupi indian language means “fruit that look like an eye”.

Like yerba Mate, guaraná is full of caffeine.

Cachaça & Garapa

Garapa is the fresh juice of sugar-cane, the ingredient from which Cachaça is made of.

This is a very sweet beverage and usually some lime is squeezed in to balance.

Much found in snack bars where it is freshly squeezed by a machine.

Samba (in Berlin)

This highball was invented out of necessity during WWII by Brazilian soldiers who mixed their ratios of Cachaça with American ratios of Cola.

BATIDA

Batidas are other typical beverage, the name means “beaten”.

The Batida started by meaning any mixed cocktail that was shaken or blended, but in the 80’s a famous condensed milk company promoted many Cocktail Competitions and the term Batida began to be used for blended drinks containing condensed milk.

A Batida can has many flavors and they go along with the name, like Batida de Banana, Batida de limão and Batida de Coco.

Traditional odd (but delicious) flavors are: SweetCorn (Milho Verde), Peanuts (Amendoim) and Guava (Goiaba). A very popular is Maracujá (Maracuya/ Passion Fruit).