Caipirinhas & Caipiranhas

I’ve been working on a cocktail called Grounds for Divorce…

I’ve invented a cocktail that I’d like to share with you. As with all the best discoveries, it started off partly by accident, which was then supplemented by my own innate cocktail genius which I didn’t realise existed. 

The best caipirinhas in Brazil are found in Paraty, and hundreds of cachaças too from all over the country. This is a fact, unless you can find one that looks better than this one… Paraty also has an endless stock of cachaça liquers with jabuticaba, cacao and other fruity Brazilian delights to soften the blow of the rocket fuel, including the Gabriela (cravo & canela, cloves & cinnamon) which actually comes from a novela based around a Jorge Amado book title. The book was based in Ilheus, Bahia, the writer’s home town, but the novela was filmed in Paraty and stayed behind afterwards to influence the most famous cachaça liquer in town, and one that really does the trick on the few cold nights of the year there. The best caipirinha for taste also comes out of Paraty, being the only place where you can find the caiçara version on the menus. This is a mixture of lime and passion fruit, named after the local people who occupied the coastal fishing villages of the Costa Verde, and they complement each other wonderfully. Caipirinhas such as these have been responsible for many a lost night trying to keep footing on the wobbly cobbles of the historic centre in Paraty, which is hard enough sober.

The caiçara caipirinha led to other things. One day at home I made a spicy caiçara fruit juice based on the passion fruit and lime idea, adding some fresh ginger because it is the healthiest thing you can have in a fruit juice, and also some honey instead of sugar (you can have this one for free). It was so well-balanced and such a perfect mixture that it must be the best fruit juice I’ve ever tasted. Unfortunately, I’ve never quite got the balance so well since then, but hey.

So another drunken night in Paraty, Blondie couldn’t even pronounce ‘caipirinha’ properly, and it came out as ‘caipiranha’. Immediately it sounded like something fun, a serendipitous portmanteau of two of the finest things Brazil has, the caipirinha and the legendary piranha fish. So sat around the table we decided that we’d have to each make our own version of the caipiranha. Until now, only one has been invented, and that was mine. I went back to the spicy caiçara fruit juice and thought that being a caipiranha, then my cocktail would need to have sharp teeth.

There is only one way to provide that, which is of course to add pimentinha, fresh chili pepper.

The test run went well, at least for me. The group who tasted the caipiranha actually approved it but couldn’t handle so much pimentinha in a drink. I finished it with numb lips and a throat that didn’t know what to think about the mixture that had just made its way down, but the overall effect was highly memorable and enjoyable, and the invention goes down as a palpable hit in my eyes. Perhaps the best way to use the caipiranha cocktail though is as an excellent end-of-night challenge between friends. Only for those brave enough or drunk enough to tackle it.

I wish boa sorte, the best of Brazilian luck to anybody who wishes to try it. 

Especially for Dorothy. Some kind of Recipe:

The Caipiranha

To make one large one to pass around the group (Brazilian style) or to drink and grudgingly give a small taste to others (my style):

2 Limes
1 large Passion Fruit (they are big in Brazil) or maybe two of the small ones
2 tsp Natural Honey, possibly more to take the edge off the lime and the tang from the passion fruit. Brazilian Caipirinhas are VERY sweet so plenty of honey might be needed to match
A thumb-nail of fresh Ginger
1 fresh medium red chili - for Brazil a Dedo de Moça (Woman's Finger) would be about right, although definitely cut to taste! Green chili perhaps for a milder idea.
Crushed Ice 

First up, I would finely chop or grate the ginger and the same with the stalk-half of the chili. For a stronger bite, chop more chili, for weaker, less.

As with a regular lime caipirinha, you half, quarter and then eighth the limes first and grind them in the pilao, the traditional Brazilian mortar and pestle used to make the cocktail, and which also make good souvenirs/presents. 

This is used to gently crush the juice out of the lime, in order to bring out the juice but not the bitterness of the white lime pith. Adding honey to the mixture, and then the contents of the passion fruit. Another idea for decoration with the large Brazilian passion fruits is to just take the top off, like a boiled egg, scoop out the inside and then use the case as your drink container! The skin has to be thick and without any holes for this to work though. (In Bahia, this is done with cacao cocktails, a most beautiful-looking drink).

I prefer to leave the passion fruit with seeds intact, as I like to chew them and prefer the taste without them being crushed. No blender involved whatsoever, and especially not for the limes. Mixing in the ginger and chili should give you a lovely green-orange colour, peppered (geddit?) with red specks, something like a good Thai sweet chili sauce perhaps.

Add in the chopped ice, stir it all up, and then comes the piece de resistance. The second half of the chili can be sliced a quarter of an inch from the cut and placed on the edge of your glass. Your drink now has a tooth, and you are ready to get bitten by your very own caipiranha! 

The Real Rio Road Race

It isn’t often that you can say that the Olympic Road Race competitors have it easier than ordinary cyclists on a hilly 250km course, but Rio is no ordinary city for cycling. The regular roleur has far more obstacles to deal with on their way around the course.

Beginning in Copacabana, you can take it as read that any cycling on roads filled with horrendous traffic and Rio’s notoriously terrible drivers is best done where possible on the beach paths that run alongside them, for your own safety. These provide their own fun too, especially at weekends, with people crossing the path on their way to the beach while texting phones, carrying deckchairs and iceboxes, plus the workers with their supplies for the day. It gets even worse later in the afternoon when all this happens again, but with added drunkenness. Not one of them looks one way, never mind both. The beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema, Sao Conrado and Barra da Tijuca all have wonderful scenery to distract you before you reach the Reserva, with the Marapendi Lagoon on one side and the beach on the other, although a couple of Frogger crossings of the highway are necessary.

Passing through the time-trial start-line in Recreio, you start the rolling Grumari Circuit. Here, the ‘cycle-path’ is a few painted signs on the road, and impatient drivers completely ignoring it as they brush past to save themselves valuable seconds on the journey. There are regular road signs too, the old ones full of bullet holes were replaced before the World Cup. There was a sign with a bike on it once, but one afternoon of New Year’s Eve, a car coming down the hill managed to leave the road, took down the new sign, and rolled to a stop by the canal, upside down, smashed to pieces and with blood on the inner roof. Happy New Year.

A quick stop at Praia do Secreto, the secret beach hidden in the rocks, is possible here, with stunning views back the way you just came. The next bend brings the beautiful little Prainha into view, a surf beach corralled by mountains covered in Atlantic Rainforest. Here you can spot the scarlet Brazilian tanager, various monkeys, collared anteaters (even in the surf!), and maybe even a constrictor or two curled up in the trees. A short, sharp climb takes you over to Grumari if the road hasn’t been blocked by falling rocks at this point, as it was a few years ago. You can see rocks propped up with concrete on your right, a common sight in Rio.

Grumari is another wild, surf beach and the descent down there can be taken quickly but the pave that began on the flat was a chain-banger, supplemented by cars reversing out of blind parking spots into your way. You can always slow down, and even stop to take a look at Abricó, the nudest beach hidden amongst the rocks at this end of Grumari. The pavé used to run the whole 3km of the beach but now most has at least some asphalt behind the dunes and tatty beach bars. The sharpest climb of the route begins as you head over to Barra da Guaratiba, up to 18% and a couple of hairpins. Keep an eye and an ear out for the amphibian-like bark of toucans at the top, and also for the beautiful views from a remarkably ugly restaurant. Point de Grumari has fabulous panoramas to distract you from its new warehouse extension, looking out over the mangrove islands and curving beach of Restinga da Marambaia, and over a large section of the Costa Verde, Brazil’s spectacular emerald coast, including Ilha Grande in the distance. The steep descent here has added difficulty with drivers screeching their way up as they occupy most of the corners, although at least the collection of pot-holes connected by short strips have been replaced by almost smooth tarmac.

The flat straight between the mangroves is known as ‘The Anglo-Saxon Section’ but only by me. This is where there are more language and sign-language lessons for careless Brazilian drivers than any other part of the route. The buses racing each other to the next speed-bump on a road with no space regularly try to shave your left handlebar. You can always duck into the Sitio Burle Marx gardens for some respite, or stop to eat oysters and marvel or pity at the clicking crabs suspended from the roadside stalls.

The smooth climb of Grota Funda, the deep cave that is now a road tunnel comes next, a nice roll for a few km. The tunnel was only opened a few years ago, yet trucks are prohibited from using it, so they will always be your company on the way up, and to overtake on the way down. Truck drivers tend to be more cyclist-friendly than any other type of Brazilian driver though, and try to get you plenty of room on the road. Winding back to the beach road, the brand new asphalt makes a massive difference here, although the edges of the tight road still have grates at the old level, which are definitely best avoided. I also once had an open-backed truck full to the brim with shit spilling a little of its load on me down here.

Back on the beach road, and a little detour off it takes you to the urban caiman, the hardest animals in Rio and possibly the world, including Brutus, the toughest of them all and who we feed regularly with meat and fish leftovers. He comes when called now, our very own pet caiman. Look out for his missing back left foot, but do it with your nose closed. The lack of proper sanitation in Rio is very noticeable here in the Corredor Verde, the sarcastically-named (I presume) Green Corridor. The caiman in the oily waters of the Corredor Merde are probably the least dangerous creatures you and your bike will meet all day. Even the cute and harmless capybara of the Reserva can cause trouble if a family of them appears from the brush in the late afternoon, as has happened to me before. Running into the pig-sized daddy would cause more damage than the legendary Tour de France Labrador.

Back through to Sao Conrado and then another climb up the side of Pedra Bonita, with the imposing Pedra da Gavea monolith behind, and colourful hang-gliding wings overhead, you enter the Tijuca Forest National Park. Monkeys running on two legs while carrying arms-full of fruit are a possible hazard here. Around to the Vista Chinesa, then an adrenaline-inducing 4km winding 10% descent through the forest and down to the Botanical Gardens, with traffic to overtake during the week, and hikers to impress or to avoid as the road closes on weekends. As long as nobody taking photos gets in your way, this is definitely the most fun part of the route, and built for a top-tuber for anybody who thinks they could stay ahead for the final flat 12km along the beaches and back to Copacabana.

This being Rio, there are added obstacles for the regular cyclist that the professionals shouldn’t have (although you never know!). Luckily for the professionals, they don’t have to confront the Avenida Niemeyer coast road, with Keanu Reeves seemingly skidding buses around the corners. It was actually safer to cycle on for four months earlier this year, until the first big wave took down the criminally flimsy ‘most beautiful cycle path in the world’ and killed two cyclists.
Getting pushed off your bike and watching a group of local kids walk away with it is about the lightest possible outcome of a bike robbery in Rio, and there has been a spate of them recently. Sometimes in this city, the fastest road bike is not always the best one to ride. A rusty Mary Poppins might get you there in a far safer way.

So if you’ve managed to survive all of this intact, with your bike still rolling, and with most of it still between your legs, you definitely deserve some kind of medal!