If you've ever tried a classic margarita, whiskey sour, or daiquiri, then you're already familiar with the sour family of cocktails. As a drink, it's as simple as can be — spirit and sweetener plus something acidic, like a dash of citrus. This basic formula is so tasty that even though it's been around for centuries, drinks from this family are still staples on cocktail menus around the world.
If you like to mix your drinks at home, there's a twist for amping up the flavor of any sour cocktail that uses rum as the spirit base: Swap out the rum for cachaça, a Brazilian sugarcane-derived liquor. This tip mostly drew inspiration from one of the most popular cachaça-based drinks out there, the beijo sour, which combines cachaça with lemon, pineapple, raspberry, and simple syrup. And, if you have a bottle at home, adding the grassy, subtly sweet liquor into recipes like a classic daiquiri or a Mojito can bolster the drink's flavor.
What is cachaça, and how is it different than rum? While both rum and cachaça are made from sugarcane, there are several key differences between them . The most notable is in the raw ingredient: The latter is distilled entirely from fresh sugarcane juice, whereas rums are produced from molasses, which is the cooked byproduct of sugar production. This gives cachaça a brighter, more herbaceous taste compared to rum's caramel and spice-forward profile.
Just like rum, cachaça is classified based on how it's stored and whether it's aged after.
