The Ingredient Swap That Ensures A More Robust Sour Cocktail

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.

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 distillation. If it's unaged, it'd be called "branca" (white). Since this takes less time to produce, it's usually quite cheap. On the other hand, cachaça that's aged in a barrel will take on an amber color and gain the name "amarela" (yellow).

This classification will come in handy when we start swapping rum for cachaça in our sour recipes. If you'd like to swap cachaça for white rum, you'll find the branca variety to be closer in flavor. Meanwhile, for replacing dark rum, give amarela cachaça a shot.

Looking for some recipes to give this tip a trial run? To test the water, you can start by using cachaça as an addition rather than a substitution — a rum negroni will be a good recipe for this. Stir ⅙ shot of cachaça in with a shot each of rum, a Vermouth Rosso, and a bitter of your choice (Campari, if you like it old-fashioned), and see how you like it!

If the vibe fits, you can start giving cachaça a bigger role in your drinks, beginning with a cachaça daiquiri. Just combine cachaça, lime juice, and sugar, to taste, for a zestier riff on the classic. For something a little different, give the metropolitan cocktail a Brazilian twist. Pick your favorite recipe, but instead of vodka, use cachaça — everything else, from the triple sec to the cranberry and lime juice, stays the same.

As a parting note, keep in mind that cachaça's flavor is still different from rum, so even though it'll work for most rum-based sours, not every drink will take to the swap well. Pick a simple recipe and taste as you go, adjusting the amounts of sweeteners and other ingredients as needed. With enough experimentation, you can assemble a list of cachaça-spiked recipes that'll surely be a hit on happy hours!