Caipirinha: Brazil's National Cocktail
Three ingredients and no tricks: lime, sugar and cachaça. The difference between a good caipirinha and a bitter one is entirely in how you crush the lime. Five minutes a glass.
Ingredients
- 1 medium lime
- 2 tsp sugar
- 50 ml cachaça
- Ice cubes
Method
- 1
Wash the lime and cut off both ends. Halve it lengthways and remove the white pith running down the middle: that is the part that turns bitter.
- 2
Cut each half into four pieces and put them in the glass with the sugar.
- 3
Press straight down without twisting the muddler. What you want is the juice, not the skin: grind the peel and the bitter oils come out, and no amount of sugar fixes that.
- 4
Fill the glass with large ice cubes. Small ones melt at once and water the drink down before you finish it.
- 5
Pour in the cachaça, cap it with a shaker or a second glass and shake twice — or stir from the bottom up with a long spoon.
- 6
Serve in the same glass, without straining.