Caipirinha

The caipirinha is the national drink of Brazil. Its main ingredient is cachaça, which is a wonderfully sweet sugar cane rum.

1 lime, quartered

2 teaspoon brown sugar

50 mls cachaca

Chill a rocks glass with cracked ice. Place the lime quarters in the bottom of a mixing glass; add the sugar, and muddle, extracting the juice and the oil in the skin from the lime quarters. Add the cachaca to the mixture in the mixing glass, dump the ice from the rocks glass into the mixing glass, and shake well. Pour the entire contents of the mixing glass back into the chilled rocks glass and serve. We can have as many variations as you like, just replace some of the lime juice with another fruit.

Pisco Sour

Peru and Chile both claim that the pisco sour is their invention.. What is known, is that the Peruvians they blended it. Pisco is a grape brandy made from the muscatel grape.

50 ml Pisco

25ml of egg white

1 or 2 depending on taste teaspoon of sugar

25ml of fresh lime juice

Angostura bitters (optional)

Crushed ice

Place the Pisco, egg white, sugar, lime juice, and ice in a cocktail shaker or a blender . Shake vigorously. Strain into a martini glass and add the bitters. You can also serve in an old fashion whisky glass as we do it at Sabor.

Cocktails

As the summer peaks, it's time to enjoy the gardens and an opportunity to entertain at home. We get asked a lot for any ideas for a Latin flavoured “trago” or cocktail to spice up the gathering, especially by those expecting South American guests.

The first thing is to think of drinks that would complement the food that will be served and also about your guests drinking preferences, as we Latinos are a diverse bunch. Our different countries have unique customs, aesthetics, and cultural influences. One thing that unites us all though is our love of getting drunk. Let’s face it, the history of Latin America is pretty bleak. If you had been conquered by Francisco Pizarro and Hernan Cortez, kidnapped from Africa to cut sugar cane or lived under a military/communist/fascist dictatorship, you'd want a drink too, so don't blame us, as we also love to have fun.

In Latin American thanks to the weather we can grow a variety of exotic tropical fruits, and this has helped us to come up with some pretty fun cocktails. A lot of men think cocktails are for girls, but the recipes we use at Sabor, that I'm going to share with you in the next few postings, can be enjoyed by anyone without fear.