I’ve been contacted recently by the team behind Aqua Luca, a Brazilian cachaca, as they’re launching the brand in San Francisco with a big party Sunday at the Bambuddha Lounge. This new brand was created by two east coast banker types who were looking for a new venture.
I was curious as to why they chose a cachaca, when the only drink that calls for it is the Caipirinha. When I looked into it, I learned that I didn’t have a clue what cachaca is.
Cachaca is just rum made with sugarcane juice instead of molasses. I did not know that. According to Wikipedia, some other rums are actually made with sugarcane then flavored to taste like molasses. I’ve heard that Oronoco is actually cachaca but it’s labeled as rum.
They sent me a (very pretty) bottle of it in the mail to try. Now, I don’t claim to be a rum connoisseur (since I didn’t even know about a whole category of the stuff), but here are my impressions on tasting Agua Luca.
The nose of this cachaca is very much more sharp and alcoholic than the rums I’m used to. It’s almost medicinal like rubbing alcohol rather than giving off coffee notes like Bacardi, though after nosing it enough I can smell baker’s chocolate. It’s also hot and thin in the mouth- not as creamy and slow as other rums, and it’s sharp in the mouth after swallowing, but not in the throat.
The bottle says it has a “lively finish,” and they’re not lying. The flavor is very compact and flies past the pallet so fast that your brain has a hard time capturing the flavors as they speed past. The main thing I taste is something between a barrel and tea, like a woody stalk of a plant (not that I’ve been sucking on many of those lately). I also taste ink, but I haven’t had too much of that lately either, though I clearly remember the flavor of the Scripto erasable pen from sixth grade.
Anyway, on my first cachaca tasting I’d have to say that I prefer regular rum to sip. The next step will be trying each in Caipirinhas and other mixed drinks. Because, you know, I have to be thorough.
