Cachaça is the spirit most Australians search for as "Brazilian rum", and the description is close enough to be useful and wrong enough to matter. It is made from sugar cane, it comes from Brazil, and an aged one can sit very near an aged rum in the glass. But cachaça has its own definition in Brazilian law, its own alcohol band, its own ageing words and its own woods, and none of those transfer to rum.
This guide explains what cachaça is, where it differs from rum, what the Brazilian label terms mean, how to make a caipirinha, and which Germana bottle to start with.
What cachaça is
Brazil's federal beverage decree, Decreto 6.871 of 2009, defines cachaça in one sentence. It is the typical and exclusive name for aguardente de cana produced in Brazil, between 38 and 48 per cent alcohol at 20 degrees, obtained by distilling the fermented must of sugar cane juice, with sensory characteristics peculiar to it, and with up to six grams of sugar per litre permitted.
Three things in that sentence do the work: cane juice, not molasses; Brazil, with the word reserved to it; and a ceiling of 48 per cent, which few spirit categories have. The detailed standard sits in a Ministry of Agriculture instrument, Portaria MAPA 539 of December 2022, in force from 1 February 2023, which replaced the earlier Instrução Normativa 13 of 2005. The ageing and labelling rules below come from that text.
Why "Brazilian rum" is the search term but not the category
Whether cachaça is a rum depends on whose law you are reading. Three jurisdictions give three answers.
In Brazil it is not rum. Cachaça is its own beverage under the decree, and a 2001 decree, Decreto 4.062, declares the name "cachaça" a geographical indication belonging to Brazil, so a cane spirit made anywhere else cannot use the word there.
In the United States it is a rum, formally. Since a 2013 rule from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, the standards of identity list cachaça under the rum class as "rum that is a distinctive product of Brazil, manufactured in Brazil in compliance with the laws of Brazil". The rule was part of a bilateral arrangement under which Brazil, in turn, recognised Bourbon and Tennessee whiskey as distinctive products of the United States. That is recognition in one trading partner's regulations, not worldwide protection.
In Australia the Food Standards Code does not mention cachaça at all. Standard 2.7.5 defines a spirit as a potable alcoholic distillate produced by distillation of fermented liquor derived from food sources, names rum among its examples, and requires at least 37 per cent alcohol by volume for spirits other than tequila. Cachaça sold here is simply a spirit that meets that standard.
So "Brazilian rum" is a fair shelf description, and the legal position in one country. It is not what a Brazilian producer would call it, and here is why.
Where cachaça and rum genuinely differ
The raw material. Rum, under the American definition, can be distilled from cane juice, cane syrup, molasses or other cane by-products. Molasses is the syrup left over from sugar refining. Cachaça must be distilled from the fermented juice of the cane itself, which is a large part of why young cachaça tastes green where a young molasses rum tastes of toffee.
The place. Rum is made everywhere cane grows. Cachaça is Brazilian by definition. An Australian distiller could make a cane juice spirit, but under Brazilian law it could not be called cachaça.
The strength. Brazilian law sets cachaça between 38 and 48 per cent. Rum in the United States has a floor of 40 per cent and no upper limit, and Australia's floor for spirits is 37 per cent. A cachaça above 48 per cent is, by definition, something else.
The sugar. Cachaça may carry up to six grams of sugar per litre. Between six and thirty grams it must be labelled cachaça adoçada, sweetened. The Australian spirits standard sets no sugar figure; the American rules cap added colouring, flavouring and blending material in rum, sugar included, at 2.5 per cent by volume.
Unaged and aged: reading a Brazilian label
Unaged cachaça is clear. You will see it sold as branca or prata, white or silver, but those are trade words rather than terms the standard defines. This is the caipirinha spirit.
Envelhecida, aged, is a protected term. To use it, at least 50 per cent of the volume must have been aged in a wooden vessel of no more than 700 litres for at least one year. Caramel colouring is permitted for cachaça aged or stored in wood.
Premium means the whole volume has been aged for at least one year. Extra premium means the whole volume has been aged for at least three years. Both terms are defined in the standard, so unlike "premium" on a rum label they mean something specific.
The wood must be named. The standard requires the name of the wood used for the storage or ageing vessel to be declared on the label. Where a bottle blends aged spirits of different ages, the age stated must be that of the youngest component.
This is where cachaça pulls away from rum. Cachaça producers use oak, but they also use Brazilian hardwoods, and the label tells you which. Germana's range shows two of them. Umburana, which the producer describes as a Brazilian wood, gives its Caetano's bottling, which we are not carrying at present, an intense floral aroma and a light, fruity woodiness rather than the vanilla and caramel of oak. Bálsamo, used for the last two years of the Heritage, contributes to a nose the producer calls sweet, strongly woody, herbal and spicy. These woods are a cachaça signature.
The caipirinha, correctly
The caipirinha is cachaça, lime, sugar and ice. Nothing else. The same decree that defines cachaça says a mixed drink made with cachaça, lime and sugar, at between 15 and 36 per cent, may be called caipirinha. We are not going to tell you who invented it, because nobody can say for certain.
To make one: cut half a lime into wedges and put them in a sturdy short glass with two teaspoons of sugar. Muddle until the juice runs and the oils come out of the skin, and stop before the pith turns the drink bitter. Add 50 ml of unaged cachaça, fill the glass with crushed or cracked ice, and stir until the outside of the glass frosts. It is one short glass and roughly a drink and a half, and the lime and sugar are there to frame the spirit. Use an unaged cachaça; an aged one is wasted under that much lime.
Germana
Germana is made at Fazenda Germana in Nova União, in the state of Minas Gerais, by the Caetano family. The producer states it has been making cachaça since 1912, that it distils in a direct-fired copper pot still fuelled with the bagasse left over from crushing the cane, and that bottles are wrapped by hand in banana straw by the farm's empalhadeiras, a practice it says began as protection for bottles travelling by mule cart.
Germana Cachaça Soul at 40 per cent is the unaged expression. The producer rests it for six months in stainless steel, so it stays crystal clear, and describes it as sweet on the nose and refreshing and slightly sweet to taste. This is the one for the caipirinha, and a fair way to taste what cane juice does that molasses cannot. Germana Cachaça Soul (White).
Germana Cachaça 2 Years at 40 per cent is two years in wood, oak by the producer's current account, and the colour is a vibrant gold. The producer describes it as slightly fruity on the nose and woody and sweet to taste. It is the bridge bottle: it works in a rounder caipirinha, and it sips. Germana Cachaça 2 Years.
Germana Cachaça Heritage 10 Years at 40 per cent is the case for aged cachaça as a sipping spirit. Eight years in oak, then two in bálsamo. The producer's own description is sweet, strongly woody, herbal and spicy on the nose, with a sweet, smooth palate and a light bitterness at the end. The bálsamo is the part a rum drinker will not have met before. Germana Cachaça Heritage 10 Years.
Germana Cachaça Single Barrel at 43.6 per cent is nine years in oak under the producer's master blender, bottled from a limited production. Dark amber, rich oak on the nose, woody notes leading with a sweet edge behind. Of the four it is the one an oak-aged rum drinker will find most familiar, and the strongest in the range. Germana Cachaça Single Barrel.
How to drink it
Unaged, in a caipirinha or over ice with a squeeze of lime. Aged, neat in a small glass at room temperature, the way you would treat a good aged rum. A 30 ml pour is enough. To understand the category in one evening, pour the Soul and the Heritage side by side: same producer, same method, and ten years of wood between them.
Where to start
- For caipirinhas: Germana Cachaça Soul (White).
- One bottle for both mixing and sipping: Germana Cachaça 2 Years.
- Coming across from aged rum: Germana Cachaça Heritage 10 Years.
- The strongest in the range, and the closest to an oak-aged rum: Germana Cachaça Single Barrel.
The full range sits on our Cachaça page, and we deliver to every Australian state and the ACT.