The wheels of government grind ever on, and often in the wrong direction. But every once in a great while they do eventually get where they ought to go. For instance, through a trade agreement with Brazil, the United States has agreed to recognize the category of Cachaça as a trade designation, in return for Brazil recognizing our definition of Bourbon and Tennessee Whiskeys.

I wrote extensively on the background of these negotiations, and the efforts in support of them by major cachaça brand, Leblon. Leblon has had a great deal of fun with the process, and apparently sold a great deal of fire-water along the way. In fact, I’m wondering what the heck Leblon will do to promote its product, now that they have won their “insurgent campaign”….

I note the slowness of the government’s movement on this only because the post I reference above, wherein the deal already seemed done, was written in 2009.

They call their movement Legalize Cachaça! You can visit their website here. The idea is to mobilize justice-minded citizens of America to take to the streets in peaceful protests to pressure the government to free Cachaça from rum’s iron-handed moniker. From New York to New Orleans, grassroots supporters of Brazil’s Noble Spirit have taken to the streets in large, loud protests.

Sure they have.

Cachaça is a liquor that is gaining in popularity in the United States, due in part to the cocktail renaissance we are enjoying, and in part to edgy (Not Entirely SFW) and creative marketing by various brands. I’ve written about it several times in the past, and I like a good Caipirinha quite a bit when it’s hot out.
While Cachaça is sometimes referred to as Brazilian Rum, Cachaça is most definitely not rum. It doesn’t taste like rum, you can’t use it in place of rum, and while both come from the sugarcane plant, instead of rye, corn, or potatoes, the Cachaça process is fundamentally different from rum’s. Hell, even this guy knows Ka-Cha-Ka is it’s own distinct booze.
Ooops! Did I say Cachaça is sometimes referred to as Brazilian Rum? Actually, if you want to sell a bottle of Cachaça in the United States, you have to label it Brazilian Rum. It’s a federal trade regulation that all Cachaça makers must mislabel their product, folks.
The Cachaça industry, and the Brazillian government have finally woken up to this issue and have begun lobbying the Treasury Department’s Tax and Trade Bureau to correct this old rule. This will allow them to quit calling their product something it isn’t, and also prevent somebody from setting up a still in, say, Costa Rica, making Brazillian Rum, calling it Cachaça, and selling it here. Their efforts are being aided greatly by the desire of many American distillers to prevent, say, Eastern Europeans from selling whiskey in Brazil and calling it Bourbon or Tennessee Sour Mash.
In fact, correcting this silliness is largely a done deal. It is uncontroversial. The revision to the regulation has been written and agreed to by all parties. The only hang up now is that our august Administration has not found someone who has paid enough of his or her taxes to be confirmed as the appropriate Deputy Treasury Secretary who can sign the paperwork.
So, I might suggest you pick up a bottle of Cachaça and put it away in storage. One day, your grandkid can put it on a display shelf in his basement bar and bore his guests to death with the same moldy old story about how the ancestors used to be such idiots as to call Cachaça… you get the picture.

Now, while they wait, the various Cachaça makers would like to sell you as much Brazilian Rum as they can. And one maker, Leblon Cachaça has decided that if they must deploy diplomats and hire lobbyists to demand change (Change!) from Washington, they might as well deploy street protesters, sign declarations, shout slogans, and generally make a big ruckus in the streets of America. The fact that any attention they garner might lead those so attracted to say, try come Cachaça, is strictly incidental….

What you see pictured above is a very clever, effective, and a bit silly example of a practice called Astroturfing. Astroturfing is where a lot of money wants to advocate some political action but wants to hide thier involvement and instead make it look like a grass-roots movement, i.e. a group of private, ordinary citizens who are so moved by a cause that they rise up almost spontaneously and speak out.
If you don’t know what Astroturfing is, you should. And if you do know what Astroturfing is, please don’t think I’m accusing Leblon of any of the underhandedness usually associated with the term! (Fair disclosure, Leblon sent me a bottle of their Cachaça to review last Fall. Thanks guys, it’s good.)
Leblon has run two of these events that I know of, one in New York (pictured above), and the other in New Orleans, at Tales of the Cocktail. The Tales protest, which accompanied the signing of the Cachaça Declaration of Independence, was more performance art than Astroturfing. Of course, given that it was in New Orleans, this may be what serious political protests actually look like down there….

Here’s a cool video Leblon produced about the New York City protests. Look at how effectively they have done this. It looks big. We are treated to the artful shot of a police car, and some of the protestors are wearing masks. The signs are all legible to the video camera. The people have several clearly understandable and organized chants. The interview with Steve Luttman (the man behind this promotion) is nicely done, as is the clip of the slightly bemused Brazilian tourists.

These little marketing events look like that they are supposed to look like, real, live, big protests.
In fact, the big lesson you should take from this is this: If this protest looks so real to you, how many of the protests you’ve seen over the last decade only looked real too?
There are ways, of course, that you can tell Leblon’s stunt is Astroturfing. And they are worth studying so that you can use these same techniques to tell if any real political protest isn’t so real either. Beyond the subject matter (Americans do not take to the street in the rain to protest obscure governmental bottle labeling stupidity), these protesters’ signs are too good. They are professionally made, and scaled for the cameras, by someone who knows good production values. You see the same sign duplicated many times. The camera is always positioned to make the crowd seem bigger than it really is. The protesters go off frame in one place and return in another, increasing the apparent size of the protest. You see some of the same faces of rank and file protesters in cities hundreds of miles or more apart. There are no Belgian Beer Purity activists or whatever hanging around in the back of every shot, trying to gravy train on the main protest….
Oh, and there can be no really well-run Astroturfing campaign without protest babes.

I wrote to Steve Luttman for some more information and a few pictures. And I asked him about Astroturfing too. I was amazed that he had not even heard of the term! This is a practice that has been developed over decades. Millions are spent on Astroturfing all the time. And Steve and a few dudes in his graphics department duplicated the whole industry, near letter perfect, in a few days, probably while consuming at least a modicum of Brazilian Rum.
Astroturfing in politics is designed to do two things, neither of them very savory. They want to misrepresent the strength of the movement, to intimidate politicians. And they want to misrepresent their numbers to trigger the herd instinct in ordinary people.
The reasons Leblon’s promotion is clever and fun, rather than underhanded, are varied. First, the signs are all in Leblon’s corporate typeface and colors. Also, Leblon’s advertising slogan, Live. Love. Leblon. is on many signs. In short, it’s almost impossible, if you know even what Cachaça is, not to know this is a Leblon paid event. Finally, Leblon and the other Cachaça makers have embarked on a mundane, legitimate, already about to be successful lobbying effort, and this political action isn’t really aimed at that effort. They are out to make a buck and have some fun. What is more legitimate and American than that?

The Cachaça Declaration of Independence.
{click to pop full size image}
To gauge the gravity of this document, please note that in just the first column, such cocktail luminaries as Gabriel Szaszko, John Hancock, and I. P. Freely all are signatories….

In a typically wonderful example of the timing that permeates my life, I got a bottle of Boca Loca Cachaça recently. Unfortunately it was about two days after I posted my Caipirinha Battle between Leblon, Cachaça 61, and Cabana. It’s not fair to the first three to have Boca Loca roll in after the battle and shoot the cripples. It isn’t fair to Boca Loca either, since I’ve already set in my mind who is the best Caipirinha Cachaça.
So I have resisted thus far actually making a Caipirinha with the Boca Loca, to keep my evaluation pristine.

Pristine?
My, aren’t you the highfalutin cocktailian!

I simply want to keep the Boca Loca separate until I decide about it on its own merits.

So that leaves only one problem:
You don’t know any other drinks to make with Cachaça.

You are supposed to make comments that reinforce my points and make me look brilliant, not sit around on your fat butt, pointing out my inadequacies. But since you are determined to become a major part of this post, why don’t you suggest some recipes?

Me? No problem.
The gang at the Mixosoleum cocktail chat room had a whole night devoted to Cachaça drinks.
You can read about it at the blog. Of course, if you’d been there, you’d know all this stuff.

I got in late. I had to kill someone that night, and work takes precedence.
And besides, the wrap up was where I went first. The problem is that I don’t have ready access right now to a number of the ingredients they were using. I chose two recipes, SeanMike’s Brazillian Frog and Blair’s Shaven Yak Belly, to start. The Shaven Yak Belly failed to appeal much, but it was worth a second shot with the Leblon it was invented for to see the difference. Sorry Blair, but I’m not making it again, with either Cachaça.
Then I mixed up a Brazillian Frog.

I tried it too.
Yech!
SeanMike, honestly, what were you thinking?

Hey buddy, she said it, not me!
Next, I went to Boca Loca’s own website, drinkbocaloca.com, to see their suggestions. The first thing I learned is that their website’s recipe formatting totally craps out on an iPhone, so don’t use yours to visit Boca Loca. I did find a lot of different, likely-looking recipes there, however.

Wait a second, aren’t the recipes you find on brand websites those, whatchacallem, Marketing Cocktails? I seem to recall you had some dubious thoughts on those….

Shh! Not so loud. Most of Boca Loca’s recipes are by Jeffrey Morganthaler.

What? Jeffrey-freaking-Morganthaler? Whipping out some Marketing Cocktails? For real?

I said, Shhh!

What? You’re afraid he’ll be offended that you are making fun of him for making Marketing Cocktails? Don’t worry. He doesn’t read your little blog.

In the first place, you are making fun of him, not me. In the second, he probably will read this post, since you insist on linking to him!

Jeffrey Morganthaler! Jeffrey Morganthaler! Jeffrey Morganthaler!

Don’t be an ass. He’s not Beetlejuice. Besides, I have high hopes for this particular batch of recipes, because Jeffrey whipped them up.
In my time-honored manner of choosing a new drink recipe, I looked at the pictures, to see which one was the prettiest. I really liked the Boca Amora Bruise, and saw that I even had what it took to make it up. Here’s Jeffrey’s recipe (with what I used in parens):

BOCA AMORE BRUISE

• 1.5 oz. Boca Loca Cachaça
• .5 oz. apple brandy applejack (Laird’s)
• 1 oz. simple syrup (.75 oz. simple syrup)
• .75 oz. fresh lemon juice
• 3 late summer berries (.25 oz. my blueberry syrup)

Muddle berries in the bottom of a mixing glass. (Use blueberry syrup in lieu thereof) Add remaining ingredients and shake with cracked ice until chilled. Strain into an ice-filled old fashioned glass and garnish with lemon and berries.

Let me mention that I took a moment to sniff the Boca Loca as I started mixing this cocktail. It has a very appealing fruitiness that I did not get with any Cachaça I’d tried previously.
The Boca Amore has a lovely color and the other ingredients play up the fruity overtones I just mentioned nicely. Now a sip.
Sigh.
It really is a Marketing Cocktail, Jeffrey. Sorry. It’s just too sweet. It tastes good, but the sugars all conspire to drown out any complexity. Chicks (not broads) in bars might find it tasty, but I think it fails the most important aspect of a Marketing Cocktail (which so many such recipes do): It does not showcase the feature ingredient to good advantage! If you didn’t know what was in Jeff’s Boca Amore Bruise, you’d never guess Cachaça at all, not to mention one as smoothly fruity as Boca Loca.

You’re going to get it now!

Shuddup.
But Jeffrey’s on the right track with this drink. The ingredients are there for a fine cocktail, and they really should showcase the Boca Loca well. So, I tried to improve the thing.

Now this is a delicious little drink. The first thing that happens is that the sticky sweetness is gone, so your tongue can get at the rest of the ingredients. The trademark muskiness that for me separates Cachaça from Rum makes itself known, but not overtly. The apple from the Calvados is more cider-y, rather than juice-y. And the taste develops as it rests in your mouth, like a good, complex drink should. The lemon just brightens the room, without really announcing itself much.
Some of my preference here is because I like tarter drinks to begin with. If you think it’s too bright, you could back the lemon off a bit without altering the flavor profile, just smoothing it out. But don’t use so much sugar.
I think I really like this drink. It’s another good use for all the Cachaça I have around (though I doubt it’ll be any good with the Cabana or the 61), and another good use for my blueberry syrup. It’s refreshing, and complex enough to appeal to seem like a cocktail, while still being light enough for a drink. Besides, it’s another cocktail I can say I invented all… on… my… own!

Man, are you asking for it!

Quite possibly. But in the meantime, I’ve gotten the tasty Boca Loca in my mind. I’ll try it in Caipirinhas after Christmas.

So I missed virtually all of the Leblon Cachaça-sponsored Thursday Drink Night this week. Sue me, I had tickets to some obscure musician named Harry Connick Jr. What, you think I’m missing that?
Anyway, I felt a bit left out, and rather than try to come up with my own, pathetically late drink, or go out shopping for ingredients I don’t have to try everyone else’s recipes, I opted to do something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time: Let the three bottles of Cachaça I have on hand duke it out in a no-holds-barred Caipirinha battle!
Those of you who know what a Caipirinha is, please skip this pre-fight paragraph. The Caipirinha is a drink made with Cachaça, the national spirit of Brazil. The chief difference between Cacahça and Rum is that Cachaça is make with cane juice, as opposed to molasses. The most famous cocktail using Cachça is the Caipirinha, which is a lowball cocktail that is refreshing and bracing.

If you don’t have a muddler (and you should!), the folks at Leblon will happily send you a reasonably nice one for free. It’s plastic, but I like that because it’s easier to clean than wood, and it is heavy enough to be useful. A word of warning, do not copy the muddling technique of the hot chick on the ordering page.

Ladies and Gentlemen! Let’s get ready to… RUMBLE!
In the first corner, weighing in at 750 ml, and costing $34, the undisputed reigning champion of sexually suggestive advertising… Cabana Cachaca!

In the other corner, also weighing in at 750 ml, and costing $15, the first bottle of Cachaca Doug ever tasted, Cachaca 61 Rum!

And in the the other other corner, weighing in coincidentally at 750ml, and costing $29, the most active brand in all the cocktailosphere, Leblon Cachaca!

OK boys!
Round One!

Actually, there’s only going to be one round for now. Just Caipirinhas.

Only one round?
What, I’m not pretty enough for you as a ring card girl?

What? No! You’re a perfectly smokin’… um… sock! Seriously!

Cabana comes out first, swishing distractingly. We take a cautious sip, with an eye out for our spouses. Oh! That had to hurt! There is a definite edge to this stuff, and not a good one. The Cabana has an oily, metallic bite that really only hits you when you take a big, full swig. Little sips, and you just sense… something… wrong.
Pow! Down goes Cabana!
61 moves out to the fore in workmanlike fashion. This makes a darn good, basic cocktail. I bought this bottle some time back after seeing a Caipirinha recipe in a book and liking the picture. The drink it produces is tart, tasty, but has bit of a rough edge. This is not the nasty edge of the Cabana, just rough.
Finally, Leblon slides into the center to mix things up, nearly stumbling over Cabana’s languidly recumbent form. This Caipirinha is a bit smoother than the 61. It has a kick, and it punches up the lime and lime oil flavors like the other Cachaças, but it is much less raw. There is a kind of ruggedness to Cachaça that Leblon mostly hides. It’s there, but hidden—like a nicely tailored suit on a body-builder.

And nooooow the winner!
By decision, the winner, and Pegu Blog Caipirinha Champion is…

I say by decision because the 61 is nice enough itself, and much cheaper. I suspect it is a much more authentic Cachaça than Leblon, in the sense that most Brazilians probably drink stuff that is closer to 61 than Leblon. But that would make Crystal Palace more authentic than Belvedere, which kinda limits the whole value of authenticity. The Leblon is the smoothest of the bunch, still richly flavorful, and reasonably, though not cheaply, priced. It mixes up one hell of a good Caipirinha. If you haven’t tried Cachaça at all, I’d suggest the first bottle you try be Leblon. If you can find the 61, and want to experiment, I’d buy a bottle of it second. See if you like it rough!
Oh, and the Cabana? Please buy a bottle of it too, if you have the budget. We all ought to support companies who run marketing campaigns like theirs….

OK, my last post on When Politics Attacks, regarding Absolut and SKYY Vodkas, got us a little attention here at the Pegu Blog. I’ve run across another story which shows that the United States in not the only place where you can hurt yourself unnecessarily by offending nationalist sentiment, and so I’ll share it with you. I assure you I have no other motive than pure political punditry…. That said, this will not be my most Safe For Work post. And the links will be even less so.
Our subject today is Cabana Cachaça. Cachaça is an interesting liquor that was invented and is mostly produced in Brazil (This is important to our tale). Lots of people in the US refer to it as Brazilian Rum.
Cabana is a new brand that will soon be on sale in the United States. While it is made in Brazil, it is owned, marketed, and imported by a New York firm. Their advertising campaign uses the tag line, Authentically Brazillian. Numerous people in Brazil, especially a number of bloggers, have gotten angry at the use of this phrase for a brand that is owned and created by a foreign company. To the Brazillians, Cabana is essentially a carpet bagger, coming into town to exploit the ignorant local rubes, profiting from their culture without being a part of it. The problem in Brazil’s is essentially the same as Absolut’s here: You run ads tailored for one country at your own peril in this age when those same ads will hurt you somewhere else. The Internet Is Watching Your Booze Ads!™
Now, Cabana may also be sailing into stormy political waters here in the US as well, but for a different reason—The content of the ads. Cabana’s ad campaign features that for which Brazil is most famous in the United States, and I don’t mean rain forests. In fact, it really isn’t about rain forests! Cabana’s website is here. It currently is only a flash video, but you will not be seeing said video running on American television. Follow the link for the whole thing, but here is a screen shot of the relevant not rainforested area that is so Authentically Brazillian (Pops to full-size):
Now, I want to go on record as emphatically not objecting to this ad campaign. Frankly, its a Hall-of-Famer in my book. But it already is raising eyebrows in the Sex-Equals-Objectification crowd, and I’m guessing we’ll be hearing more from them later. At least I certainly hope so, as it will give me an excuse to go back and examine the issue further…. UPDATE: Incidentally, the AdAge blogger, Laura Martinez, who wrote that piece I just pointed to is who tipped me off to the controversy. She only posts one link in her article, and she kind of undermines her point, by choosing a Brazilian blogger who more closely shares Laura’s concerns, rather than being in sync with the larger controversy in Brazil. Odd choice, Laura.
At any rate, I should leave you with a recipe that uses Cachaça. This drink is one I’ve started to mix every week or so since I started keeping fresh limes in stock more frequently in my basement bar.

This is a delicious, refreshing drink. There is lots of lime juice (adjust how much lime you end up muddling in to taste), but the oils from the peel are what are special. Also, it just looks really good in the glass.
Cheers!

UPDATE x2: Ace-o-lanche! Welcome Morons and David Lynch fans! While you are here, I hope you look around—You know you want to, you drunken bastards! If you are looking for something to do with all that Valu-Rite™, try a Moscow Mule. If you want a gallon-plus cocktail, you need only go here. And for God’s sake, this blog exists to get get you to try this recipe, so help a poor blogger out, M’kay?