Caipirinha VS. Mojito: The Drinks That Delight Everyone

Caipirinha VS. Mojito: one is the Brazilian national drink; the other is one of the most successful drinks in the world, especially in summer. What makes caipirinha and mojito favorites in gastronomy? Perhaps it is its refreshing and unique flavors that have lingered for centuries.

Do you want to know more about Caipirinha VS. Mojito? Follow me in this content to understand more about these fantastic drinks.

If your life is sour, add cachaça and ice and enjoy a good caipirinha!

-LEANDRO MIOJO

Jump To Section

1. Caipirinha
2. The Brazilian Typical Drink Footprints
3. Cachaça and Its Ingredients
4. Original Caipirinha Vs. Cocktails
5. Caipirinha: Classic Recipe
6. Mojito
7. The Mojito Footprints
8. Rum And Its Ingredients
9. Mojito: Classic Recipe
10. Caipirinha Vs. Mojito

Caipirinha

Ideal for pairing with feijoada, bbq, and other typical Brazilian foods, caipirinha (pronounced kīpəˈrēnyə) is a mixture of cachaça, lime, sugar, and ice. As one of the most emblematic drinks in Brazil, it is also internationally known, becoming a mandatory tasting stop for tourists passing through the country.

The Brazilian Typical Drink Footprints

There are no official records on where precisely the caipirinha originated. According to researchers, it is believed that the drink originated among rural workers in the Central and Northwest regions of Sao Paulo state, where the production of lime, sugar cane, and sugar has always been abundant.

From this point, some theories about this 100-year drink of existence would have been presented.

The first version of the drink, which still did not have the name caipirinha, would have emerged as a home medication during the chaos triggered by the Spanish flu, whose virus spread worldwide and arrived in Brazil in September 1918 with passengers aboard the English ship Demerara. The original recipe for the drink at that time included lime juice, garlic, honey, and a dose of cachaça, as alcohol was used to accelerate the drug’s therapeutic effects.

Popularly, lime has always had a medicinal function because of the high concentration of vitamin C. Caipirinha would be, in this view, an infusion based on Galician lime and other ingredients, quite common in the countryside.

Another version is that farmers in the region of Piracicaba, the countryside of São Paulo,  created the caipirinha as a local drink, made without garlic and the honey replaced by sugar, served at events of the high class of society, praising the strength of the sugarcane culture in the region.  The drink became a good-quality option for imported beverages such as whiskey and European wines.

Rio de Janeiro

A further possibility is that the drink appeared in Paraty, Rio de Janeiro state city, around 1856, in the fight against the cholera epidemic that affected the region.  The infirm received cachaça (distilled spirit) seasoned with water, sugar, and lime as an alternative consumption of water that could be contaminated.

In 1922, during the Modern Art Week held in São Paulo, renowned artists and modernist intellectuals embraced the national gastronomic culture. The Brazilian painter Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973) elected the caipirinha as the official drink of the movement, taking it to the old continent, in particular, Paris.

The word caipirinha is a feminine diminutive of caipira, which the capital inhabitants called the people of the rural areas with little education or poor farmers. Thus, caipirinha may be associated with the cost of its low ingredients.

The drink was glorified in the capital São Paulo during the 50s and 60s and migrated to other cities until it reached Santos, where it started to be consumed by tourists, mainly on the beaches, becoming a summer drink.

Fabrizzio Guzzoni

After trying the drink in a local bar, Fabrizzio Guzzoni, owner of the Grand Hotel Ca’d’Oro in Sao Paulo, started serving it in his hotel’s restaurant. But first, he made some changes to the drink recipe. 

Guzzoni standardized the glass, added ice, and replaced the Galician lime with Tahiti, which has no seeds and makes it easier to prepare and consume. 

Soon, the caipirinha became popular with the elite class, foreign tourists, and distinguished guests who frequented the hotel, like the Spanish king Juan Carlos I, the French president François Mitterrand, the tenors Luciano Pavarotti and José Carreras, the sopranos Aprile Millo and Montserrat Caballé.

In 1997, the caipirinha joined the select group of Cocktails of the I.B.A (International Bartender’s Association), being promoted and served in restaurants and bars in more than 50 countries.

In 2003, intending to protect the drink’s authenticity, the Brazilian government made it a national patrimony.

§ 4 Caipirinha is the typical Brazilian drink, with an alcohol content of fifteen to thirty-six percent by volume, at twenty degrees Celsius, obtained exclusively from Cachaça, plus lemon and sugar.

Cachaça And Its Ingredients

The original caipirinha uses cachaça, a typical name for a distilled spirit made from fermented sugarcane juice, produced in an artisanal or industrial process with an alcohol content of 38% to 48% by volume.

Cachaças can age in wood barrels or stainless tanks, and any matured process can provide a good distilled spirit to prepare caipirinha. However, like any beverage aged in wood, it will acquire unique aromas than those developed in steel tanks. 

The traditional lime in the drink is Tahiti – green rind, without seeds and ideal acidity. 

Sugar should not be exaggerated because its function is only to cut the acidity of the lime and not prevail in the drink. 

Original Caipirinha Vs. Cocktails

Currently, due to its immense popularity, the drink has several variations of recipes with brown sugar or artificial sweeteners, vodka or sake instead of cachaça, grapes, passion fruit, or strawberry instead of lime.

Naturally, with the drink’s worldwide fame, bartenders invented many cocktails with cachaça, sugar,  ice, and different fruits like pineapples, strawberries, and kiwis, sometimes called “caipifruits.”

Beverage specialists claim that they prefer not to adopt the name “caipirinha” for such variations. Although other drinks are tasty, they can’t be called “passion fruit caipirinha,” for example,  because the classic one is made with lime and not other fruit. 

This misunderstanding can hinder the spread of authenticity abroad, and with that, people may think that everything that mixes cachaça becomes Caipirinha.

The same happens with the type of drink used to make the drink, resulting in different prefixes and suffixes of the original name, for example:

Caipiroska – Caipirinha made with Smirnoff Vodka;

Caipiríssima – Caipirinha made with Bacardi Rum;

Caipinheger – Caipirinha made with Steinhäger;

Saquerinha – Caipirinha made with Sake;

Caipivinho – Caipirinha made with Wine.

There are also versions with spices such as rosemary, lemongrass, mint, and ginger.

Although many variations are appreciated, according to Brazilian legislation, only the drink made with cachaça, lime, sugar, and ice can be called caipirinha.

Caipirinha: Classic Recipe

Mojito

A cocktail made with white rum-based ingredients from the Caribbean, the mojito originates from Cuba and is one of the most popular rum cocktails served today. Due to its freshness of mint leaves, the drink is well appreciated during the hot seasons of the year.

The Mojito Footprints

Like any other cocktail, the history of the Mojito is not so clear-cut. However, some interpretations occurred in the middle of the 16th century when Francis Drake, an English admiral, anchored his ship in Havana, Cuba. Francis and his brother, Richard Drake, would have been surprised at the ingredients on the Caribbean island. Richard would then have created a cocktail known as El Draque, made with aguardiente de caña (a precursor to rum), sugar, lime juice, and mint.

Enslaved Africans used sugar cane brandy, mint leaves, sugar cane juices, and lemon juice for medicinal purposes. 

The word mojito may have originated from the Spanish “mojar,” a verb meaning ‘wet.’ But some say it comes from the African “mojo,” which means “small spell.”

This story was told in Cuban bars, especially in “La Bodeguita del Medio,” by the American writer Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961), who contributed to the popularization of Mojito.

However, Mojito became famous when Americans spent their holidays on the beaches and bars of Havana. Many of them identified with the Mojito as it was similar to a popular drink in the US, the Mint Julep, a cocktail made with whiskey, mint, and ice.

Rum And Its Ingredients

Like cachaça, rum has the same raw material, sugar cane. However, through fermentation and distillation, rum is made from sugarcane by-products, such as molasses or sugarcane juice.

A run classified as light is usually produced by continuous distillation, while a run with higher alcohol content is distilled in a copper still. Rum has a higher alcohol content than cachaça, between 35% to 54% by volume, and can be aged in oak barrels or equivalent wood.

Bartenders prefer to use white, unaged rum, as the drink should be balanced by highlighting the freshness of lemon and mint.

Mint is considered a medicinal herb that helps treat poor digestion, colic, vomiting, insomnia, vermifuge, bad breath, and insect bites. Originally from Europe, it was brought to America during colonization and mixed in medicinal infusions and later in cocktails. The mint transfers its freshness and aroma to Mojito.

Bartenders use Simple Syrup in most cocktails as it is easily diluted. However, Cubans use granulated sugar to claim that when grinding the sugar granules, you will muddle the mint, extract a greater amount of natural oils from the plant, and add more aromas.

Fresh lime juice creates a chemical reaction and mixes with the chlorophyll in mint, mitigating the plant’s bitterness.

The Mojito is served in a tall, highball-style glass, so the ice must be cubed and not crushed. As the biggest drink consumption is during the summer, using crushed ice will lead to a quick melt and a watery beverage. In contrast, ice cubes allow for a slower dilution in a cocktail with club soda.

Club Soda is water mixed with carbon dioxide added to drinks to lower the alcohol level and balance the ingredients, making consumption easier. Remember that rum has a high alcohol content, between 35% to 54% by volume.

Mojito: Classic Recipe

Caipirinha Vs. Mojito

Cocktail	Origin	Distillation	Beverage	Fruit	Sugar	Other Ingredients	Glass to Serve
Caipirinha	Brazil	Sugar cane brandy	Cachaça	Lime	Fine Sugar	Ice Cubes	Old Fashioned
Mojito	Cuba	Sugar cane molasses	White Rum	Lime	Fine Sugar	Ice Cubes MintClub Soda	Highball

Bottom Line

Caipirinha VS. Mojito? While caipirinha is made with cachaça, lime, and sugar, the main ingredient in the mojito is white rum. 

Both drinks marked their histories in South and Central Americas, respectively, during the period of colonization, when medication options were insufficient. 

This reason made the natives or local community use the alcoholic by-products of the distillation of sugar cane mixed with lemon and spices as relief for certain infirmities. 

However, they couldn’t know that cachaça and rum, used in therapeutic infusions, would become the protagonists of the most famous cocktails in the world, the caipirinha, and the mojito.

Did you like this article?

I hope that you have understood the difference between Caipirinha VS. Mojito. To learn more about wines, take a look at the Sauvignon Blanc: The Enthusiast’s Guide To Wine Lovers.

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