If you can't afford the plane ticket or time off to go to sunny Brazil well then you need to venture to a dark basement in Dublin. In the basement of Sweeney Mongrels, every Sunday you will get some sunshine in the form of Rafael Agapito. Rafa is on a mission to show people the wonders of Fubá Cachaça, the happy drink!
Cachaça is over 500 years old. It has two main styles,
with the main ingredient though is the same: Sugar-cane juice.There is also over 5000 types of cachaça, with a tiny percentage getting exported out of Brazil. There is industrial Cachaça which is mass produced, column distilled spirit, which is unaged
and has sugar added to it to round up the harsh taste. Artisanal
Cachaça, is the hand-crafted small batch spirit, often distilled in
copper pot-stills, and mostly pure and unsweetened, with both aged and
unaged versions. Aging of Cachaça is done mainly in American Oak casks
or other types of Brazilian wood like Jequitiba, Amendoim Ypê, etc,
imparting a subtle, warm taste profile. Fubá Cachaça is artisanal style – yay! So now you have the history lesson, read on to explore the tasty drinks we made from it!
To help spread the word he invited a few lucky Yelpers to learn how to make the cocktails off his short and tasty menu. We started things off with a Caipirinha. Two Yelpers at a time got behind the bar and under the guidance of Rafa added some sugar syrup and muddled some lime, Fubá Cachaça and shaked the mixture like crazy like Tom Cruise in Cocktail!
Next up from the menu was a Fubá Smash which is simply fresh basil,lemon, sugar syrup shook together and served over cracked ice. Absolutely delicious! Rafa encourage us to grow some basil at home as it's easy to grow and a great addition to cocktails.
After that we tried Strawberry Batida. Rafa did a slight variation on it by using all different types of frozen berries which you can get in the supermarket. The Yelpers muddled the berries, added sugar syrup, Cachaça, lots of ice and shook the cocktail shaker for dear life! What came out was a refreshing mixture then topped with sparkling water in a frozen wine glass. Granished to perfection, it went down our gobs too easy!
Next up was the Marmalade Sour. Again a twist on the whiskey sour. It consists of maramlade that you can get anywhere, Cachaça, lemon juice, egg white and orange bitters. Rafa gave a great tip with the eggs, just shake the egg and then pop a hole on top and the egg white will come out. Shake the mixture and serve… Mmm protein shake with a kick!
To finish things off we have a Gingerbread Caipirinha so a slight change on the traditional Caipirinha, in that you add some gingerbread syrup and the result is a taste explosion of awesome! Rafa decided to make up some Cachaça punch at the end of the evening. He made it up with the left over ingrediants and also thought it up on the spot – it was delicious especially as some Brazilian music flowed over the speakers… Ah sunshine in Dublin does exist!
Thank you so much for coming out, if you want to see the recipes for the cocktails check out Fubá Cachaça's website. You can read the reviews here! Check out the photos here! And post the gossip on talk here!
Thanks so much to Rafa for teaching us about his culture and this great drink. I hope that you had fun and I will see you on Yelp and at all our upcoming events!
All my best as always!
