Check out the site here!
http://www.nirvino.com/drink/Beija-Flor-Ana-Mandara-Restaurant-San-Francisco?id=4FZm8xvJhUOVeyAQY3FqOcL
Monday, November 17, 2008
Nirvino Presents: Show Me Your Cachaça Video
Thanks to the Nirvino crew for putting together this great video of the Show Me Your Cachaça event at Sens Restaurant in San Francisco, where my drink, Beija Flor, won the competition!
Check out the site here!
http://www.nirvino.com/drink/Beija-Flor-Ana-Mandara-Restaurant-San-Francisco?id=4FZm8xvJhUOVeyAQY3FqOcL
Check out the site here!
http://www.nirvino.com/drink/Beija-Flor-Ana-Mandara-Restaurant-San-Francisco?id=4FZm8xvJhUOVeyAQY3FqOcL
Sunday, October 19, 2008
A Time Line Introduction of Trent Simpson’s Cachaça Expertise:
A Time Line Introduction of Trent Simpson’s Cachaça Expertise:
• Summer 2001-At age 18, traveled solo on three month backpacking trip to Brasil, searching for secret beaches.
o Discovered not only beautiful beaches, but also a delicious drink called Caipirinha, and witnessed the magic and culture behind Cachaça.
o Developed passion for Brasilian culture, language and philosophy of life.
o Talked with all Brasilians about how much I enjoyed both Cachaça and Caipirinhas and how I planned on bringing them to the United States.
• Fall 2004-Spring 2005- Studied abroad one full year in Bahia, Brasil living with Brasilian host family, traveling and attending regular courses at Federal University of Bahia. Became fluent in Portuguese.
•
• 2006- Co-Founded Alegria Spirits, a marketing and consulting firm based in the United States to market and teach about Latin American products such as wine (Malbec), spirits (Cachaça and Pisco) and energy products (Maté Guarana, Açai).
• Seeing the launch of premium Cachaças in Brasil showed promise that it could be mainstream spirit in US with innovative marketing thus launch of Leblon, Cabana and Sagatiba.
• June 2006- January2007- Graduated college and traveled to various regions of Brasil, including Minas Gerais, learning about Cachaça production.
• February 2007-Moved to San Francisco to work hand in hand with brother, DJ Trevor Simpson and Alegria Spirits, to bring Cahcaça and Caipirinhas in San Francisco Nightlife.
• April 2007-Created and Developed Nightlife Ambassador position with Leblon Cachaça.
o Managed over 25 on-premise accounts.
o Completed over 50 demos, sold over 30 display racks and worked directly with distributor (Southern Wine and Spirits) on over 50 off-premise accounts.
o Sold in over 300 9L cases in Northern CA nighlife markets and helped achieve lofty OND goals by working with Regional Manager and VP of Sales.
o Created parties specifically to market and sell promote Cachaça and Caipirinhas such as: Brazilian Electro Funk, Batida Perfeita and Baile Fidget.
• November 2007- Mastered Caipirinha Mixology with position at SF Caipirinha hotspot, Bossa Nova restaurant and bar.
• January 2008 – Founded World Town Presents, event production company to throw eclectic, innovative, international and creative parties in SF and world.
• September 2008 -Won Caipirinha Mixology Event sponsored by Cabana Cachaça and www.Nirvino.com in SF with drink Beija Flor.
• Summer 2001-At age 18, traveled solo on three month backpacking trip to Brasil, searching for secret beaches.
o Discovered not only beautiful beaches, but also a delicious drink called Caipirinha, and witnessed the magic and culture behind Cachaça.
o Developed passion for Brasilian culture, language and philosophy of life.
o Talked with all Brasilians about how much I enjoyed both Cachaça and Caipirinhas and how I planned on bringing them to the United States.
• Fall 2004-Spring 2005- Studied abroad one full year in Bahia, Brasil living with Brasilian host family, traveling and attending regular courses at Federal University of Bahia. Became fluent in Portuguese.
•
• 2006- Co-Founded Alegria Spirits, a marketing and consulting firm based in the United States to market and teach about Latin American products such as wine (Malbec), spirits (Cachaça and Pisco) and energy products (Maté Guarana, Açai).
• Seeing the launch of premium Cachaças in Brasil showed promise that it could be mainstream spirit in US with innovative marketing thus launch of Leblon, Cabana and Sagatiba.
• June 2006- January2007- Graduated college and traveled to various regions of Brasil, including Minas Gerais, learning about Cachaça production.
• February 2007-Moved to San Francisco to work hand in hand with brother, DJ Trevor Simpson and Alegria Spirits, to bring Cahcaça and Caipirinhas in San Francisco Nightlife.
• April 2007-Created and Developed Nightlife Ambassador position with Leblon Cachaça.
o Managed over 25 on-premise accounts.
o Completed over 50 demos, sold over 30 display racks and worked directly with distributor (Southern Wine and Spirits) on over 50 off-premise accounts.
o Sold in over 300 9L cases in Northern CA nighlife markets and helped achieve lofty OND goals by working with Regional Manager and VP of Sales.
o Created parties specifically to market and sell promote Cachaça and Caipirinhas such as: Brazilian Electro Funk, Batida Perfeita and Baile Fidget.
• November 2007- Mastered Caipirinha Mixology with position at SF Caipirinha hotspot, Bossa Nova restaurant and bar.
• January 2008 – Founded World Town Presents, event production company to throw eclectic, innovative, international and creative parties in SF and world.
• September 2008 -Won Caipirinha Mixology Event sponsored by Cabana Cachaça and www.Nirvino.com in SF with drink Beija Flor.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Beija Flor Takes the Cake
My drink, Beija Flor, won in a battle of cachaça mixology last night at Sens restaurant in SF sponsored by Cabana Cachaça and www.nirvino.com. Here are the list of ingredients and some pictures with links to the site! Thanks for all the support!
My drink is called Beija Flor:
1 1/2 oz Cabana Cachaça
3/4 oz Mint Infused Simple Syrup
5 Halves Muddled Farm Fresh Strawberries
3 Muddled Blueberries
Squeeze of Fresh Lime Juice
1/2 oz Raspberry Ginger Brew
Navana Vanilla Cognac Float
Shake vigorously with love, strain over fresh ice in collins glass, garnish with home garden grown fresh Korean medicinal mint sprig.
http://www.nirvino.com/blog/
My drink is called Beija Flor:
1 1/2 oz Cabana Cachaça
3/4 oz Mint Infused Simple Syrup
5 Halves Muddled Farm Fresh Strawberries
3 Muddled Blueberries
Squeeze of Fresh Lime Juice
1/2 oz Raspberry Ginger Brew
Navana Vanilla Cognac Float
Shake vigorously with love, strain over fresh ice in collins glass, garnish with home garden grown fresh Korean medicinal mint sprig.
http://www.nirvino.com/blog/
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
GW Alum Launch BEIJA Cachaça
Boston based duo Kevin Beardsley and Steve Diforio launch Beija Cachaça
www.beija.net
Article coming soon...
Friday, May 2, 2008
Allure of Cachaça Spreads to U.S. From Brazil
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/dining/09cachaca.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print
The Pour
Allure of Cachaça Spreads to U.S. From Brazil
By SETH KUGEL
BARRA MANSA, Brazil
ABOUT 90 miles outside Rio de Janeiro, after the bikinis of Ipanema give way to shantytowns, industrial suburbs and finally green hills, a dozen empty 9,000-liter oak casks lie in a new cellar outside a 18th-century Portuguese colonial farmhouse surrounded by 1,500 acres of forest, pasture and sugar cane.
Antônio Rocha hopes those casks, when added to the 17 full ones in another cellar, will help satisfy the growing taste in the United States for wood-aged cachaça, a smoother, sippable version of the spirit his family has been making for four generations on the farm.
If people in the United States have ever tried cachaça — fermented and distilled sugar cane juice — it's probably when it has provided the punch for a caipirinha cocktail made with lime and sugar, mixed with a more heavy-handed mass-produced brand.
But at Mr. Rocha's farm, they chop sugar cane from their own fields, put it through a water-powered mill, ferment the juice with naturally occurring yeast and distill it using power generated by burning the leftover sugar cane pulp.
To age his 5-year-old cachaça, he uses cherry wood casks. His 12- and 25-year versions are aged in French oak. The casks in the warehouse are part of an expansion of the business.
For years, the family sold their cachaça to other bottlers around the state of Rio de Janeiro and didn't even use its own label, Rochinha, until 1990.
"Until 1990, cachaça didn't have any value," Mr. Rocha said. "The ones that sold were the ones that advertised; the quality ones didn't advertise. It was only by word of mouth."
Four years ago he began selling his 5- and 12-year-old cachaças in the United States, in liquor stores including Astor Place Wine & Spirits in lower Manhattan and by the shot at Churrascaria Plataforma in Midtown.
Aged cachaças, which usually have spent at least a year in wood casks, are only a tiny fraction of the overall cachaça market in the United States, maybe a thousand 9-liter cases a year, according to Olie Berlic, who imports Rochinha through Excalibur Enterprise in Greenwich, Conn. But demand is growing.
Imports of all cachaças (pronounced ka-SHA-sas) in the United States are way up in the last decade: 647,000 liters in 2007, compared with 213,000 liters in 2002 and fewer than 100,000 as late as 1998, according to the Brazilian government.
The two brands that dominate the market — Pitú and 51 — are mass produced and marked up at least five times over their retail prices in Brazil, where they cost little more than a bottle of water and get little respect.
Those sorts of industrial brands are made in large column stills, whereas small-batch brands use copper pot stills known as alambics.
Leblon, which came on the market in 2005 and is No. 3, is a purer, fruitier, more slickly marketed spirit, and has garnered good reviews. It and other labels vying for consumers in the United States, like Água Luca and Beleza Pura, can be consumed straight, but they are being marketed for making caipirinhas (pronounced kye-peer-EEN-yahs).
Meanwhile, tagging along for the ride are a few aged cachaças from small distillers like Rochinha, imbued with the flavors, and sometimes the colors, of the wood they are stored in.
Mr. Berlic, a former sommelier at Gotham Bar & Grill in Greenwich Village who created Beleza Pura, also imports most of them. In addition to Rochinha, there's GRM from the state of Minas Gerais, and Armazem Vieira from the southern state of Santa Catarina.
"You are seeing the infancy of a category," said Mr. Berlic, who traveled Brazil, tasting 800 cachaças, to choose his imports. "What cachaça can show the world is a variety of flavors that is unavailable in any other spirit."
He said at least 20 kinds of wood are being used for aging, including oak, which can add a toasty vanilla note, and native Brazilian trees like jequitibá rosa, which can imbue the drink with spicy notes like cinnamon.
And nearly all cachaças maintain a whiff of their sugar cane roots.
How far people in the United States have to go to enjoy the variety of cachaça becomes clear with a visit to the Academia da Cachaça, a restaurant in Rio de Janeiro, where aged cachaças in the hundreds line the shelves and regulars carry a "cachaça notary" card that grants them special tasting privileges. There are 100 choices on the annotated menu, specifying the city and state of origin, the years of aging and the kind of wood they were aged in.
But Brazilians may not have that much of a head start on cachaça appreciation. Though cachaça has been around since the 1500s, it's had an up-and-down ride, and only in the last decade or so have high-end brands became popular.
"Brazil is no longer the only country in the world embarrassed about its distilled liquor," the Brazilian edition of Playboy said last April, when it ranked the top 20 cachaças.
(Two brands imported by Mr. Berlic's Excalibur Enterprise made the list: GRM at No. 19, and Armazem Vieira, from the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, at No. 8.)
Still, cachaça straight up seems to be a hard-to-acquire taste even for some Brazilians. At São Paulo's exclusive Skye bar, atop the $500-a-night Hotel Unique, with a view of the skyline so vast that it looks like Manhattan in a hall of mirrors, they use GRM to make the most expensive caipirinha in the house, costing 30 reais, or about $17. Purists might cringe, but for those who shy away from tasting liquor straight up, aged cachaça is an interesting variation.
In the United States, bars, restaurants and stores that want to offer a range of cachaças for sipping have been stymied because they can't get what they want.
Jean Frison, general manager of Churrascaria Plataforma, said he snaps up every kind he can find in New York; he has found 30. (Mr. Berlic said 40 are available nationwide, with 30 more on their way.)
At Plataforma, cachaça can cost as little as $5 for a shot of Pitú, to as much as $15 for GRM. Bottles range from about $12 for the industrial brands to $100 for the aged imports. At Astor Wine and Spirits, Beleza Pura is $24.99 a bottle and GRM 2-year is $69.99.
When Titus Ribas opened the Cachaça Jazz Club last year in Greenwich Village, he envisioned a epicurean cachaça shelf to show off the best of the artisanal cachaças from Minas Gerais state, which is a cachaça hotbed. Caught up in booking bands, though, he gave up and serves Pitú and Leblon.
Mr. Rocha and others, though, will keep trying to win people over to the taste of fine cachaça.
His family has been in the cachaça business since 1902, and he grew up steeped in it. "I didn't like television or video games or toys," he said. "For us, playing was taking apart a tractor."
He started drinking cachaça when he was about 13; even when he was studying mechanical engineering in Rio de Janeiro, he would come back weekends to work. He hopes to have an expanded business to pass on to a fifth generation, his son, Rodrigo, who was born on Jan. 18.
"We can't force him," Mr. Rocha said. "But I want to make him so proud of the brand, that he continues producing what we've done here for 106 years."
The Pour
Allure of Cachaça Spreads to U.S. From Brazil
By SETH KUGEL
BARRA MANSA, Brazil
ABOUT 90 miles outside Rio de Janeiro, after the bikinis of Ipanema give way to shantytowns, industrial suburbs and finally green hills, a dozen empty 9,000-liter oak casks lie in a new cellar outside a 18th-century Portuguese colonial farmhouse surrounded by 1,500 acres of forest, pasture and sugar cane.
Antônio Rocha hopes those casks, when added to the 17 full ones in another cellar, will help satisfy the growing taste in the United States for wood-aged cachaça, a smoother, sippable version of the spirit his family has been making for four generations on the farm.
If people in the United States have ever tried cachaça — fermented and distilled sugar cane juice — it's probably when it has provided the punch for a caipirinha cocktail made with lime and sugar, mixed with a more heavy-handed mass-produced brand.
But at Mr. Rocha's farm, they chop sugar cane from their own fields, put it through a water-powered mill, ferment the juice with naturally occurring yeast and distill it using power generated by burning the leftover sugar cane pulp.
To age his 5-year-old cachaça, he uses cherry wood casks. His 12- and 25-year versions are aged in French oak. The casks in the warehouse are part of an expansion of the business.
For years, the family sold their cachaça to other bottlers around the state of Rio de Janeiro and didn't even use its own label, Rochinha, until 1990.
"Until 1990, cachaça didn't have any value," Mr. Rocha said. "The ones that sold were the ones that advertised; the quality ones didn't advertise. It was only by word of mouth."
Four years ago he began selling his 5- and 12-year-old cachaças in the United States, in liquor stores including Astor Place Wine & Spirits in lower Manhattan and by the shot at Churrascaria Plataforma in Midtown.
Aged cachaças, which usually have spent at least a year in wood casks, are only a tiny fraction of the overall cachaça market in the United States, maybe a thousand 9-liter cases a year, according to Olie Berlic, who imports Rochinha through Excalibur Enterprise in Greenwich, Conn. But demand is growing.
Imports of all cachaças (pronounced ka-SHA-sas) in the United States are way up in the last decade: 647,000 liters in 2007, compared with 213,000 liters in 2002 and fewer than 100,000 as late as 1998, according to the Brazilian government.
The two brands that dominate the market — Pitú and 51 — are mass produced and marked up at least five times over their retail prices in Brazil, where they cost little more than a bottle of water and get little respect.
Those sorts of industrial brands are made in large column stills, whereas small-batch brands use copper pot stills known as alambics.
Leblon, which came on the market in 2005 and is No. 3, is a purer, fruitier, more slickly marketed spirit, and has garnered good reviews. It and other labels vying for consumers in the United States, like Água Luca and Beleza Pura, can be consumed straight, but they are being marketed for making caipirinhas (pronounced kye-peer-EEN-yahs).
Meanwhile, tagging along for the ride are a few aged cachaças from small distillers like Rochinha, imbued with the flavors, and sometimes the colors, of the wood they are stored in.
Mr. Berlic, a former sommelier at Gotham Bar & Grill in Greenwich Village who created Beleza Pura, also imports most of them. In addition to Rochinha, there's GRM from the state of Minas Gerais, and Armazem Vieira from the southern state of Santa Catarina.
"You are seeing the infancy of a category," said Mr. Berlic, who traveled Brazil, tasting 800 cachaças, to choose his imports. "What cachaça can show the world is a variety of flavors that is unavailable in any other spirit."
He said at least 20 kinds of wood are being used for aging, including oak, which can add a toasty vanilla note, and native Brazilian trees like jequitibá rosa, which can imbue the drink with spicy notes like cinnamon.
And nearly all cachaças maintain a whiff of their sugar cane roots.
How far people in the United States have to go to enjoy the variety of cachaça becomes clear with a visit to the Academia da Cachaça, a restaurant in Rio de Janeiro, where aged cachaças in the hundreds line the shelves and regulars carry a "cachaça notary" card that grants them special tasting privileges. There are 100 choices on the annotated menu, specifying the city and state of origin, the years of aging and the kind of wood they were aged in.
But Brazilians may not have that much of a head start on cachaça appreciation. Though cachaça has been around since the 1500s, it's had an up-and-down ride, and only in the last decade or so have high-end brands became popular.
"Brazil is no longer the only country in the world embarrassed about its distilled liquor," the Brazilian edition of Playboy said last April, when it ranked the top 20 cachaças.
(Two brands imported by Mr. Berlic's Excalibur Enterprise made the list: GRM at No. 19, and Armazem Vieira, from the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, at No. 8.)
Still, cachaça straight up seems to be a hard-to-acquire taste even for some Brazilians. At São Paulo's exclusive Skye bar, atop the $500-a-night Hotel Unique, with a view of the skyline so vast that it looks like Manhattan in a hall of mirrors, they use GRM to make the most expensive caipirinha in the house, costing 30 reais, or about $17. Purists might cringe, but for those who shy away from tasting liquor straight up, aged cachaça is an interesting variation.
In the United States, bars, restaurants and stores that want to offer a range of cachaças for sipping have been stymied because they can't get what they want.
Jean Frison, general manager of Churrascaria Plataforma, said he snaps up every kind he can find in New York; he has found 30. (Mr. Berlic said 40 are available nationwide, with 30 more on their way.)
At Plataforma, cachaça can cost as little as $5 for a shot of Pitú, to as much as $15 for GRM. Bottles range from about $12 for the industrial brands to $100 for the aged imports. At Astor Wine and Spirits, Beleza Pura is $24.99 a bottle and GRM 2-year is $69.99.
When Titus Ribas opened the Cachaça Jazz Club last year in Greenwich Village, he envisioned a epicurean cachaça shelf to show off the best of the artisanal cachaças from Minas Gerais state, which is a cachaça hotbed. Caught up in booking bands, though, he gave up and serves Pitú and Leblon.
Mr. Rocha and others, though, will keep trying to win people over to the taste of fine cachaça.
His family has been in the cachaça business since 1902, and he grew up steeped in it. "I didn't like television or video games or toys," he said. "For us, playing was taking apart a tractor."
He started drinking cachaça when he was about 13; even when he was studying mechanical engineering in Rio de Janeiro, he would come back weekends to work. He hopes to have an expanded business to pass on to a fifth generation, his son, Rodrigo, who was born on Jan. 18.
"We can't force him," Mr. Rocha said. "But I want to make him so proud of the brand, that he continues producing what we've done here for 106 years."
Friday, February 29, 2008
Bossa Nights at Bossa Nova in SF
Come this Sunday to kick off Bossa Nights at Bossa Nova...Ill be there mixing up the Worlds Best Caipirinhas, come for cocktail innovation, dancing, food and fun!!!!!
Bossa Nova SF 139 8th St. @ Minna
João Gilberto
"Desafinado"
Bossa Nova SF 139 8th St. @ Minna
João Gilberto
"Desafinado"
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
The "Caipirinha-Off"
I never thought that one little drink could be so significant in so many people's lives. For me, it has not only been a great discovery that is on the top of a long list of things I love about Brasil, but has been a way for me to earn a living, have fun, work hard and educate people about something I am genuinely interested in and good at.
I remember my first Caipirinha...I also remember the first time I tried to make a Caipirinha and learned what it was I was doing wrong (shhh its a secret). But, I also remember the first time I had perfected a Caipirinha and thus set out on a life long voyage to make Caipirinhas around the world. It asll started with a Caipirinha-Off at about 4:30 in the morning at the "Mercado de Peixe" or "Fish Market" in Rio Vermelho, Salvador da Bahia. I was with my friends, pagode music was playing in the background and endless hole in the wall bars were trying to recruit us to sit at their tables. I told my Brasilian friend that I didnt care where we sat, as long as we could get some french fries and a good Caipirinha.
So we walk to all the bars asking who has the best Caiprinha...Of course, they all say that they make the, "Best Caipirinha in Brasil." Well, we all know this is a lie, because if you ask any Brasilian if anything is good, such as a beach, it will undoubtedly be the best in Brasil. So seemingly enough, one waiter struck out fancy with his Best Caipirnha in Brasil speal and we sat down. The Caipirinhas arrived, and they were horrible. Downright disgusting. It was confirmed and re-affirmed by my friends both American and Brasilian. At that point I was gravely disappointed by the waiter's exaggeration and lies and told him that this Caipirinha was terrible and that even a sober Russian could make a better one. He saw the fire in my eye and apologized, however, that wasnt enough for me. I proceeded to enter the shack that they called a bar, and asked for another one. However, this time, they began to start making it and were doing it all wrong, I couldnt help myself and asked if I could make my own Caiprinha. They seemed not only shocked, but intrigued by the proposition, asked me if I was a bartender and then said, feel free, if you think you can make a better one, go for it. So I did my thing, and low and behold, I made a delicious Caipirinha that was undoubtedly better than the rest.
After I won this self proclaimed "Caipirinha-Off" I knew that the drink of muddled limes, sugar, crushed ice and Cachaça would be a prominent aspect of my life...However, I didnt know that it would become my life.
I remember the first batch of Caipirinhas I made when I moved out to California. I was unemployed and living at my brother's house...trying to be a cool guest, look hard for jobs and help out around the house. One evening, my brother had some people over for a drink, so thus I was immediately appointed to make Caipirinhas for the guests.
It was a new drink for them. One that is very cool to come back from Brasil and make for your friends. Explain what it is, muddle the fruit for them, add lots of sugar, crush the ice on your formica counter tops, shake it up and watch as they curiously sip your exotic concoction. I sit there with a proud smile eager in anticipation of their reaction to the libation I have created and perfected with almost two years of living and traveling in Brasil, searching for the best Cachaça, muddling with love, noting the viscosity of the fresh lime juice and sugar content and splashing the often harsh spirits over uniquely shaped crush ice cubes and seeing that steam drift up as the ice cracks and the Cachaça settles perfectly into the glass. The drink talks to me as I shake it, knowing just the right amount of force needed to seemlessly blend all the ingredients, pour everything back into the glass and wholla...the perfect Caipirinha, constructed by a very passionate gringo...This is what I am good at...maybe I should get a job doing this...Oh right, come see me at Bossa Nova at 8th and Minna for the best Caipirinha in SF, the US and quite possibly between here and Brasil. Ill make your lips tingle with sweetness and tongue quiver with the sour, but in the end, after about three or four, Ill also help you find a taxi so you can get home safe!
So if anyone doubts me, Ill be happy to have a "Caipirinha-Off" and you can be the judge!!!
I remember my first Caipirinha...I also remember the first time I tried to make a Caipirinha and learned what it was I was doing wrong (shhh its a secret). But, I also remember the first time I had perfected a Caipirinha and thus set out on a life long voyage to make Caipirinhas around the world. It asll started with a Caipirinha-Off at about 4:30 in the morning at the "Mercado de Peixe" or "Fish Market" in Rio Vermelho, Salvador da Bahia. I was with my friends, pagode music was playing in the background and endless hole in the wall bars were trying to recruit us to sit at their tables. I told my Brasilian friend that I didnt care where we sat, as long as we could get some french fries and a good Caipirinha.
So we walk to all the bars asking who has the best Caiprinha...Of course, they all say that they make the, "Best Caipirinha in Brasil." Well, we all know this is a lie, because if you ask any Brasilian if anything is good, such as a beach, it will undoubtedly be the best in Brasil. So seemingly enough, one waiter struck out fancy with his Best Caipirnha in Brasil speal and we sat down. The Caipirinhas arrived, and they were horrible. Downright disgusting. It was confirmed and re-affirmed by my friends both American and Brasilian. At that point I was gravely disappointed by the waiter's exaggeration and lies and told him that this Caipirinha was terrible and that even a sober Russian could make a better one. He saw the fire in my eye and apologized, however, that wasnt enough for me. I proceeded to enter the shack that they called a bar, and asked for another one. However, this time, they began to start making it and were doing it all wrong, I couldnt help myself and asked if I could make my own Caiprinha. They seemed not only shocked, but intrigued by the proposition, asked me if I was a bartender and then said, feel free, if you think you can make a better one, go for it. So I did my thing, and low and behold, I made a delicious Caipirinha that was undoubtedly better than the rest.
After I won this self proclaimed "Caipirinha-Off" I knew that the drink of muddled limes, sugar, crushed ice and Cachaça would be a prominent aspect of my life...However, I didnt know that it would become my life.
I remember the first batch of Caipirinhas I made when I moved out to California. I was unemployed and living at my brother's house...trying to be a cool guest, look hard for jobs and help out around the house. One evening, my brother had some people over for a drink, so thus I was immediately appointed to make Caipirinhas for the guests.
It was a new drink for them. One that is very cool to come back from Brasil and make for your friends. Explain what it is, muddle the fruit for them, add lots of sugar, crush the ice on your formica counter tops, shake it up and watch as they curiously sip your exotic concoction. I sit there with a proud smile eager in anticipation of their reaction to the libation I have created and perfected with almost two years of living and traveling in Brasil, searching for the best Cachaça, muddling with love, noting the viscosity of the fresh lime juice and sugar content and splashing the often harsh spirits over uniquely shaped crush ice cubes and seeing that steam drift up as the ice cracks and the Cachaça settles perfectly into the glass. The drink talks to me as I shake it, knowing just the right amount of force needed to seemlessly blend all the ingredients, pour everything back into the glass and wholla...the perfect Caipirinha, constructed by a very passionate gringo...This is what I am good at...maybe I should get a job doing this...Oh right, come see me at Bossa Nova at 8th and Minna for the best Caipirinha in SF, the US and quite possibly between here and Brasil. Ill make your lips tingle with sweetness and tongue quiver with the sour, but in the end, after about three or four, Ill also help you find a taxi so you can get home safe!
So if anyone doubts me, Ill be happy to have a "Caipirinha-Off" and you can be the judge!!!
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