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Cachaça Old Fashioned Cocktail Drink

Cachaça Old Fashioned Recipe

Gavin Wrigley Written by Gavin Wrigley
This Cachaça Old Fashioned recipe is an easy way to heat your winter! Mixing Cachaça, Demerara sugar, and Angostura bitters, it's the ideal cocktail for chilly nights.
Prep time: 1 minute
Mixing time: 1 minute
Servings: 1
Calories: 237

Ingredients
 

  • 2½ oz Cachaça - preferably aged
  • 1 cube Demerara sugar - or 1 tsp powdered Demerara sugar
  • 4 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters
  • 1 bar spoon soda water
  • Ice cubes
  • Orange twist - for garnish, optional

Equipment

  • Old Fashioned Glass
  • Muddler
  • Measuring Jigger
  • Stirring Glass
  • Bar spoon or long stirrer

Instructions

  • Prep Glass: Fill an Old Fashioned glass with ice cubes and give it a quick stir. Set it aside.
  • Prep Sugar: Place 1 cube Demerara sugar in your stirring glass.
  • Add Bitters: Soak the sugar cube with 4 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters.
  • Muddle: Add 1 bar spoon soda water in the stirring glass. Then, use a muddler to crush the sugar, water and bitters together. If using powdered sugar, it’s not necessary to muddle: simply stir well to dissolve the sugar.
  • Add Cachaça: Pour 2½ oz Cachaça into the stirring glass as well. Using the bar spoon, stir well so the sugar dissolves.
  • Add Ice: Fill the stirring glass with ice cubes.
  • Stir Gently: Fill the mixing glass with ice. Using a bar spoon or a long stirrer, stir well (for about 15-20 seconds). Give it a taste and stir a bit more if you feel like more dilution is necessary.
  • Strain: Remove the ice in the Old Fashioned glass and refill it with fresh, new ice cubes. Then, using the cocktail strainer, strain the drink into the ice-filled glass.
  • Garnish: Garnish with an orange zest twist (to do so, express the orange zest on top of the glass. You can either discard it after or place it on the rim of the glass for an added orange touch). Serve immediately.

Notes

Substitutes:

  • Cachaça: If you don't have cachaça on hand, you can substitute agricole rum. Just like cachaça, this type of rum is made from fermented cane juice and has a similar flavor profile.
  • Demerara Sugar: If you can’t find any Demerara sugar, unrefined cane sugar will work as well for this cocktail. White sugar is also an option, but it won’t have as rich of a flavor as the other kinds of sugar mentioned.
  • Angostura Bitters: Other aromatic bitters can be used if you don't have Angostura bitters; just make sure to use bitters that are heavy on spice and low on sugar. Orange bitters also make a nice variation.
  • Bartender’s tip: If you don’t have cubed sugar and/or are looking for an easier, faster way to make an Old Fashioned, you can use cane sugar syrup (homemade or store-bought). We advise you to make your own by mixing equal parts of brown cane sugar and hot water: it’s cheap and super easy, plus you can use any type of sugar you like! Once you have your syrup, process as follow:
    • In the stirring glass, combine 4 dashes of Angostura bitters, ¼ oz of sugar syrup and 2½ oz of dark rum.
    • Add ice, stir well (for about 15-20 seconds) and strain into an ice-filled old fashioned glass. Garnish with a cherry and/or orange zest.
If you want to be even faster, it’s also possible to combine the ingredients into an Old Fashioned glass, then add ice, stir and serve directly.

Making a Pitcher of Cachaça Old Fashioned:

  • Scale: To make a pitcher that serves 8, multiply all the ingredients by 8. That would be 20 oz of cachaça, 8 sugar cubes, and 32 dashes of Angostura bitters.
  • Mix: Combine the sugar cubes and bitters in a large pitcher. Add a splash of soda water and crush the cubes using the muddler. Then, add the rum and stir well to dissolve the sugar.
  • Serve: Pour the mixture into ice-filled Old Fashioned glasses and stir well. Add more ice if necessary, garnish each glass with an orange twist, and serve immediately.

Making it Non-Alcoholic:

  • Cachaça Substitute: Use a non-alcoholic rum substitute; these are available and reasonably mimic the rum flavor.
  • Angostura bitters: To get the spicy touch from the bitters, you can use a spice syrup (cinnamon, allspice, etc.) instead of sugar to prepare your drink. Also note that a few dashes of bitter in an otherwise alcohol-free drink won’t raise the overall ABV of the drink. The drink will indeed chemically contain a drop of alcohol, but won’t make you intoxicated at all. Depending on your reason for not drinking alcohol and your degree of tolerance on the topic, this can also be a suitable option.
  • Proceed As Usual: Use this non-alcoholic substitute instead of the regular cachaça, follow the original steps, and enjoy a non-alcoholic version.
However, keep in mind that, as the Cachça Old Fashioned cocktail is solely made out of alcoholic ingredients, it can be hard to recreate its flavor using only non-alcoholic substitutes; the overall flavor and mouthfeel will probably change greatly from the original drink. In order to make the perfect mocktail version of this drink, you may have to revise the quantity of each ingredient depending on the specific substitute you decide to use.

Making it Vegan:

The Cachaça Old Fashioned is naturally vegan-friendly as it does not contain any product of animal origin.