CACHAÇA: HOLIDAY CHEER WITH A TROPICAL TWIST

Staff Report

New York, 30 December 2006 —The holiday season has been a busy time for the high-end of contemporary art. Earlier this month, pilgrims, collectors, dealers, bankers, style editors and revellers headed for the warm weather and lavish VIP openings and parties at Art Basel Miami Beach. Others travelled to the Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil. And some fearlessly took in Tropicália: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture on view until 28 January 2007 at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York.

One way to bring back all the warm flavours and ambience of these tropical excursions is to include Brazilian cachaça in your holiday entertaining. Made from pure pressed sugar cane, cachaça is the national spirit of Brazil. A relative of rum (typically made from the molasses of sugar cane), cachaça is made straight from the juice of unrefined sugar cane, left to ferment in vats made of wood, or often copper, boiled down three times to get a sticky concentrate, and distilled in such a way that the scent of sugar cane is kept. And while cachaça has a past somewhat less sordid than rum — used to trade African slaves for the West Indies, or Indian laborers in Central America — it was, nevertheless, the favoured drink of African slaves, peasants and working class Portuguese in the early days of colonial Brazil. Today, cachaça is popular in parts of Western Europe and is rapidly finding its way into hip cocktail recipes from Seattle and Los Angeles to Miami and New York..

To celebrate the holiday season, one of Miami’s top mixologists, David Ortiz, has offered a few of his favorite cocktails made with Boca Loca Cachaça , a twenty-year-old artisan, premium cachaça from the state of Sao Paulo.

Classic Caipirinha (Brazil’s national cocktail)
(pronounced kie-purr-REEN-yah)
1 1/2 oz Boca Loca
1 lime
2 teaspoons fine sugar

Clean and cut a lime into eight wedges. Place the lime and sugar into your glass and mash the ingredients together to create a paste. Add ice equal to your glass then add the Boca Loca. It’s important to keep stirring to keep the sugar mixed well.

Pinga Tini
2 1/2 oz of Boca Loca
1/2 oz dry vermouth

Stir and strain into a frosted cocktail glass. Serve with green olives.

Cosmo Loca
1 oz Boca Loca
1/2 oz triple sec
1/2 oz lime juice
1/2 oz cranberry juice

Shake Boca Loca, triple sec, lime and cranberry juice vigorously in a shaker with ice. Strain into a martini glass, garnish with a lime wedge on the rim, and serve.

Boca Passion Fruit Batida
2oz Boca Loca Cachaca
1oz Passion Fruit Juice
1/2oz Fresh Lime
2 Bar spoons Condensed milk

Place all ingredients
into a blender. Blend
well, pour into an elegant martini glass—or your favorite cocktail stemware—garnished with fresh passion fruit and serve.

This is a very fresh, traditional drink in Brazil. Almost any tropical fruits can be substituted.

Brazilian Bitch
1 oz Boca Loca
1/2 oz almond liqueur
cranberry juice
1 splash Cola

Build ingredients in order listed in a glass, with cola on top, and serve. Garnish with a orange wedge.

Party Recipe

Fulminator
3 Bottles Boca Loca
2 Bottles Tequila
1 Bottle Vodka1/2 Bottle Whiskey
1.5 gallons fresh Orange juice
0.5 lb Sugar
1 bag Lemon

Cut lemons into wedges and mix all ingredients in large container.

Brazilian Kiss
1 ½ oz Boca Loca
¾ oz Amaretto

Splash Red Ruby orange juice on top (fresh squeezed, if available),
garnish with orange wedge & cherry
(serve in high ball glass on ice).

Bloody Lip
1 1/2 oz Boca Loca
Dash of Worcestershire
Dash of Tabasco sauce
Dash of Lemon juice
Celery salt
Pepper
Tomato juice

Over ice in a tall glass, add spices, then the Boca Loca. Fill with tomato juice & stir. Garnish with a celery stick & lime wedge.

Boca Berry
2oz Boca Loca Cachaca
1oz Açaí Berry Juice (from the exotic Amazonian Açaí (AH-sci-EE) berry, a Brazilian fruit bursting with antioxidants (can be found at Whole Foods or speciality gourmet stores)
4 lime wedges

In a rocks or old-fashioned glass muddle lime wedges. Add crushed ice and Açaí and Boca Loca Cachaca. Mix with a bar spoon. Taste for balance. If it needs a little more sweetness then add more Açaí. If more tartness then add more lime. Not strong enough then you know what to do

Available at finer bars, restaurants and liquor stores across the United States, a 750 ML bottle sells for $21. Boca Loca (Portuguese for "crazy lips") is imported by Meyer Marino Import Company, Denver, Colorado .

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