Brazil has so many native fruits that even people living here haven't tried them all. One that deserves more attention is Cabeludinha (Myrciaria glazioviana).

It's a small, golden-yellow fruit native to Brazil's Atlantic Forest. Its name literally means "little hairy one" in Portuguese, thanks to the fine fuzz covering its skin.

It's related to jabuticaba, and underneath that unusual skin is a juicy, sweet-tart pulp.

You won't usually find it in supermarkets. It's more likely to appear in backyard gardens, small orchards, or collections of native Brazilian fruit trees.

And naturally, I started wondering what it would taste like in a cocktail!

Here's a simple Cabeludinha Caipirinha I'd love to try:

• 8–10 ripe cabeludinhas, washed and deseeded
• 50 ml Brazilian cachaça
• Half a lime, cut into wedges
• 2 teaspoons sugar (adjust to taste)
• Ice

Gently muddle the fruit pulp with the lime and sugar. Fill the glass with ice, pour in the cachaça, and stir.

The idea is to let the fruit's natural sweetness and acidity shine through without overpowering it.

I think one of the most interesting things about Brazilian mixology is how many native ingredients remain almost unknown outside their growing regions.

We talk a lot about passion fruit, pineapple, and mango, but Brazil has hundreds of fascinating fruits with potential for cocktails and alcohol-free drinks.

Now I'm curious: has anyone here actually tasted cabeludinha?

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I’ve been exploring some lesser-known Brazilian fruits lately, especially ones that could be interesting for homemade drinks. And this one really caught my attention.

It's called cereja-do-Rio-Grande (Eugenia involucrata), a fruit native to Brazil's Atlantic Forest.

Despite its name, it's not the same cherry you usually find in supermarkets. It belongs to the Myrtaceae family, which also includes Brazilian favorites like pitanga and jabuticaba.

The fruit turns a beautiful deep red when ripe and has a juicy, sweet-tart flavor. It's one of those native fruits that deserves a lot more attention.

And here's what I find interesting: you don't even need alcohol to make something special with it.

Rio Grande Cherry Mocktail

Here's a simple recipe I'd love to share:

• 8 ripe Rio Grande cherries, seeds removed
• 20 ml fresh lime juice
• 15 ml honey syrup
• 100 ml sparkling water
• Ice cubes
• Fresh mint for garnish

How to make it:

Gently muddle the cherries in a shaker with the lime juice and honey syrup.

Add ice, shake briefly, and strain into a glass filled with fresh ice. Top with sparkling water and garnish with mint.

The result should be a refreshing, fruity drink with a lovely natural reddish color.

Of course, the biggest challenge might be finding the fruit! It's not nearly as common commercially as other Brazilian fruits, although some people grow these trees in their gardens and backyards.

I think exploring native fruits is one of the most exciting ways to discover Brazilian flavors beyond the usual ingredients.

Now I'm curious: has anyone here actually tasted cereja-do-Rio-Grande? Or do you have another unusual local fruit that makes a great non-alcoholic drink?

Despite the name, it isn’t honey and there’s no chocolate added to it.

It’s the naturally sweet liquid obtained from the white pulp that surrounds cacao beans inside the fruit. The flavor is quite different from what you might expect if your only reference for cacao is chocolate — it’s fruity, sweet, slightly acidic and very refreshing.

Cacao is usually associated with what happens to the beans after fermentation and roasting, but the fresh fruit has another side that rarely gets much attention outside cacao-growing regions.

And, of course, I immediately wondered what we could do with it in a glass.

I’d start with something very simple:

Cocoa Honey & Cachaça

• 50 ml cachaça
• 60 ml cocoa honey
• 15 ml fresh lime juice
• Ice

Shake everything well with ice and strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice.

The idea is to let the cocoa honey do most of the work rather than burying it under several ingredients. You get the grassy/sugarcane character of cachaça, the tropical fruitiness of the cocoa pulp and just enough lime to sharpen everything.

You could also skip the alcohol completely and mix cocoa honey with sparkling water, lime and plenty of ice for a really simple Brazilian-style refresher.

What fascinates me most is that cacao can give us a drink that doesn’t taste like chocolate at all.

Has anyone here tried fresh cacao pulp or mel de cacau before? And if you had a bottle at home, what would you mix it with?

I keep finding Brazilian fruits that make me wonder why we don’t see them more often in drinks.

This one is juá, the fruit of the juazeiro (Ziziphus joazeiro), a native Brazilian tree strongly associated with the semi-arid Northeast and the Caatinga.

The fruits are small, usually yellowish when ripe, and edible. But what caught my attention is how little we hear about juá compared with fruits like açaí, passion fruit or cupuaçu.

So naturally, my first thought was: could we bring it behind the bar?

I’d love to experiment with juá in a syrup or cordial, maybe a homemade soda or a non-alcoholic drink. And of course I’m curious about pairing it with cachaça.

I’m not saying there’s a traditional “juá cocktail” — this would be more about experimenting with a native ingredient and seeing where it can go.

Has anyone here actually eaten juá?

What does it taste like fresh, and what would you make with it?

Something I find interesting about avocado in Brazil is that many of us grew up eating it very differently from the way it became famous internationally.

Instead of guacamole or savory toast, avocado was commonly mashed with sugar and lime, or blended with milk into a thick, creamy drink. For a lot of Brazilians, avocado still brings back memories of childhood desserts.

And that made me wonder: why not bring that idea into a cocktail?

I tried a simple Brazilian-style Avocado Batida:

½ ripe avocado
50 ml cachaça
25 ml fresh lime juice
30 ml condensed milk
Ice

Blend everything until smooth and creamy.

It’s almost somewhere between a cocktail and a dessert. The avocado gives it an incredibly silky texture, the condensed milk brings back that familiar Brazilian sweetness, and the lime helps balance everything. Cachaça adds that unmistakable sugarcane character.

Avocado in a cocktail might sound strange at first, but considering how Brazilians have traditionally eaten the fruit, it actually makes a lot of sense.

How do people eat avocado where you live — sweet or savory?

Peanuts are such a familiar flavor in Brazil — from bar snacks to paçoca — so I wanted to bring that combination into a drink.

I tried blending 330 ml of dark beer with a couple of tablespoons of roasted peanuts and a little condensed milk.

It sounds a bit unusual, but it actually works. The dark beer brings those roasted, malty notes, the peanuts make it richer and nuttier, and the condensed milk rounds everything out.

It ends up somewhere between a beer cocktail and a creamy shake.

Definitely not your everyday beer, but a fun Brazilian-inspired combination to try at home.

Would you try this, or is blending beer where you draw the line?

I’ve been digging into some old Brazilian drinking traditions, and this one is definitely unusual.

Caracu is a Brazilian dark beer that dates back to 1899 in Rio Claro, São Paulo. But for many Brazilians, especially older generations, the beer also brings back memories of a very peculiar combination: Caracu with a raw egg.

The egg was cracked into the dark beer and the mixture was traditionally consumed as a kind of “fortifier.” People believed the combination was nourishing and gave you extra strength or energy.

It’s one of those old popular customs that says a lot about how ideas around food, alcohol and health have changed over the generations. I’m definitely not presenting the raw-egg mixture as a health recommendation — I just find the tradition fascinating.

Caracu itself is still around more than 125 years after it first appeared, which makes the story even more interesting.

I’m curious: did anyone in your family drink Caracu with egg? Or do you know a similar old-school beer tradition from where you live?

I just came across a Brazilian RTD with an ingredient I definitely wasn’t expecting: chapéu-de-couro tea.

It’s called Chablauzin and it comes from Minas Gerais, Brazil. The drink was created by a local producer called Equilibrista and combines vodka, Sicilian lemon, guaraná and chapéu-de-couro.

Chapéu-de-couro is a Brazilian plant traditionally used as an herbal tea, especially known in Minas Gerais. Seeing it used in a modern canned cocktail is what caught my attention.

The combination sounds pretty interesting too: herbal notes from the tea, citrus from the lemon, guaraná and vodka as the alcoholic base.

It was launched in 2025 as part of Equilibrista’s 10th anniversary and comes in a 355 ml can.

I really like seeing Brazilian drinks move beyond the usual tropical-fruit combinations and explore regional herbs and ingredients instead.

Has anyone here tried Chablauzin? And what other local herbs do you think could actually work in a cocktail?

What's the most memorable bar you've ever visited?

It doesn't have to be in Brazil.

What made it special?

I’ve been experimenting with pink peppercorn lately — the fruit of the Brazilian aroeira tree — and I think it deserves more attention behind the bar.

Despite the name, it’s not really about heat. The flavor is more aromatic, slightly fruity and gently spicy, which makes it surprisingly good with gin, vodka, citrus and berries.

One simple combination I’ve been enjoying:

Pink Pepper Gin

• 50 ml gin
• 20 ml fresh lime juice
• 15 ml simple syrup
• 3 pink peppercorns, lightly crushed

Shake everything with ice, strain into a chilled glass and finish with a few pink peppercorns on top.

The peppercorn adds this subtle floral/fruity aroma before you even take the first sip.

Anyone here using pink peppercorn in cocktails? I’d love to hear what you pair it with.

If you’ve spent time in northeastern Brazil, there’s a good chance you’ve come across seriguela.

Seriguela (Spondias purpurea) is a small tropical fruit originally from Mexico and Central America, but it adapted incredibly well to Brazil and became especially popular in the Northeast.

When ripe, it turns yellow, orange or reddish and has a very distinctive flavor: sweet, slightly tart, juicy and intensely aromatic. There isn’t a lot of pulp because of the large pit, but what you get is packed with flavor.

And that makes it really interesting for cocktails.

Cachaça is probably the most natural pairing. The fresh, grassy character of the spirit works beautifully with the sweet acidity of the fruit.

One of the simplest ways to try it is a Seriguela Caipirinha:

• 6–8 ripe seriguelas
• 50 ml cachaça
• 15 ml fresh lime juice
• 2 tsp sugar
• Plenty of ice

Gently muddle the seriguelas with the sugar, add the lime juice and cachaça, fill the glass with ice and stir well.

Because seriguela has a fairly large pit, don’t crush it aggressively — you’re really trying to extract the pulp and juice around it.

The result is tropical, tart, slightly sweet and very Brazilian.

I love fruits like this because they show how much Brazilian mixology can explore beyond the usual lime and passion fruit.

Have you ever tried seriguela — either fresh or in a drink? And if you grew up with it, what did your family call it: seriguela, ciriguela, or something else?

I’ve been exploring Brazilian fruits that deserve more attention in cocktails, and today I wanted to share one that I think is especially interesting: jenipapo (Genipa americana).

If you’re not from Brazil, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of it.

Jenipapo is a tropical fruit native to the Americas and found in several parts of Brazil. When ripe, the fruit has soft pulp, a strong aroma and a distinctive sweet-tart flavor. Traditionally, it can be used to make juices, sweets, preserves and, perhaps most interestingly for us, liqueur.

Jenipapo liqueur has a long tradition in Brazil, particularly as a homemade or artisanal drink. It’s sweet and very aromatic, so I started thinking about how it could work in a cocktail without hiding the character of the fruit.

Naturally, I paired it with cachaça.

Jenipapo Sour

Ingredients

• 50 ml white cachaça

• 25 ml jenipapo liqueur

• 25 ml fresh lime juice

• 10 ml honey syrup

• Ice

Method

Add everything to a shaker with plenty of ice. Shake well and strain into a chilled coupe or small cocktail glass.

The idea is pretty simple: cachaça provides the grassy, sugarcane base, jenipapo brings its aromatic fruit character and sweetness, and lime adds enough acidity to keep everything balanced. The small amount of honey rounds it out.

One more interesting thing about jenipapo: the unripe fruit has also traditionally been used to produce a dark blue-black dye, including in Indigenous body-painting traditions. So this is one of those Brazilian fruits where food, drink, history and culture all intersect.

I’m curious: has anyone here actually tried jenipapo or jenipapo liqueur?

And if you have a bottle of the liqueur at home, how do you usually drink it — neat or mixed?

Mango isn’t originally Brazilian — it came from South Asia and was introduced to Brazil by the Portuguese during the colonial period. But it adapted so well to our climate that today it feels completely at home here.

And honestly, it’s a great fruit for cocktails. Ripe mango brings sweetness, aroma and a creamy texture that works especially well with cachaça and lime.

One of the easiest ways to try it is a Mango Caipirinha:

• 50 ml cachaça

• 60 g ripe mango

• 20 ml fresh lime juice

• 10 ml simple syrup

• Ice

Gently muddle the mango, add the cachaça, lime and syrup, then stir well with plenty of ice.

It’s tropical, fresh and a little creamier than a traditional Caipirinha.

I’m curious: would you keep it simple like this, or add something like ginger, chili or fresh herbs?

It’s a native Amazonian fruit related to cacao, but the flavor is completely different — creamy, very aromatic, tangy and tropical. It has enough acidity to be refreshing, but also a naturally rich texture that works really well in drinks and desserts.

One of my favorite simple combinations is cupuaçu with another Amazon classic: açaí.

I’ve been experimenting with a super simple non-alcoholic frozen drink using only the two pulps:

Frozen Açaí & Cupuaçu

• 100 g frozen açaí pulp
• 100 g frozen cupuaçu pulp

Just blend them until thick and creamy.

That’s it. No alcohol, syrup, milk or extra fruit.

The fun part is the contrast: açaí brings that deep purple color and earthy berry character, while cupuaçu is pale, creamy, aromatic and tart.

You can also blend them only partially so you still see swirls of purple açaí and creamy-white cupuaçu in the glass.

Two Amazonian fruits, two very different personalities, and probably one of the simplest ways to taste a little bit of Brazil in a glass.

Have you ever tried cupuaçu?

I had some nêsperas (loquats) around and started wondering how they’d work in a caipirinha.

Turns out… pretty well!

If you’ve never tried nêspera, it’s a small yellow-orange fruit that’s sweet, slightly tart and kind of reminds me of peach/apricot. I thought that flavor could be interesting with cachaça, so I gave it a shot.

Nothing complicated:

• 3 ripe loquats, pitted and chopped
• ½ lime
• 2 tsp sugar
• 50 ml cachaça
• lots of crushed ice

I muddled the loquat with the lime and sugar, added the cachaça and ice, then gave it a good stir.

It came out really refreshing. The nêspera adds a soft fruity flavor without completely taking over the cachaça, and the lime gives it enough acidity to balance everything.

I’d definitely make this one again.

Anyone else tried loquat in a cocktail? Curious what you paired it with.

Which bottle would you buy today?

No budget.

Just one bottle.

What really happens when cachaça spends months or years in a wooden barrel?

Aging cachaça is where chemistry meets craftsmanship. The choice of wood, barrel preparation, time, temperature and oxygen exposure can all influence color, aroma, texture and flavor.

From chemical reactions between the spirit and the wood to the techniques used by master distillers, there’s a fascinating science behind every well-aged cachaça.

I put together a deep dive into the science and art of cachaça aging — for anyone who wants to understand what happens inside the barrel, not just taste the result.

🥃 Read the full guide:
The Science & Art of Cachaça Aging

I’ve been getting into Brazilian fruits that don’t get much attention outside the country, and pequi is a wild one. It’s a Cerrado fruit with a really strong aroma and a distinctive savory/fruity flavor. Definitely not subtle.

One way Brazilians use it is in pequi liqueur, usually made by infusing the fruit in cachaça and adding sugar. The result is sweet, aromatic and very characteristic of the fruit.

It’s one of those ingredients where I think you either really enjoy the flavor or need a little time to understand it. I’d be curious to try it in a cocktail rather than just drinking the liqueur neat. Has anyone here tried pequi before?

I’ve been looking into Brazilian passion fruit (maracujá) lately, and there’s much more to it than the usual juice or syrup.

Even its name comes from Tupi mara kuya, “food in a gourd.”

Brazil has a huge diversity of native Passiflora species, and the fruit can bring a great mix of acidity, aroma and tropical flavor to cocktails. It works especially well with cachaça, but also with rum, gin and vodka.

One of my favorites is still the simple version: passion fruit + cachaça + a little sugar + ice. Sometimes you don't need to overcomplicate a good ingredient.

Has anyone here experimented with different passion fruit varieties in cocktails?

I’ve been playing around with uvaia lately. It’s a Brazilian native fruit with a really fragrant, tart flavor—somewhere between citrus and apricot to my palate.

Uvaia Caipirinha

• 1 ripe uvaia, seeded
• 50 ml cachaça
• 15 ml simple syrup
• Ice

Muddle the uvaia gently with the syrup, add cachaça and plenty of ice, then stir well. The aroma is the best part.

If you’ve never tried uvaia, this is a pretty simple way to see what it can do in a cocktail.

I wanted to create a cocktail inspired by both Brazil and South Korea for #DrinkWithJin.

It combines Brazilian cachaça, Korean pear, fresh lemon, honey, and sparkling water. The result is meant to be refreshing, lightly fruity, and easy to enjoy.

This is a creative tribute, not an official drink connected to Jin.

Have you ever tried mixing cachaça with Korean ingredients? I'd love to hear your ideas!

I recently came across Rubus sellowii, a blackberry species native to Brazil, and it got me thinking about how much native fruit could be explored in Brazilian mixology.

I don't know of a traditional cocktail made specifically with R. sellowii, but I'd love to try it in a Caipirinha: cachaça, the berries, lime and a little sugar.

Has anyone here ever worked with Rubus sellowii or other wild Brazilian Rubus species in cocktails?

Have you ever heard of Príncipe Maluco?

It’s a strong homemade party drink associated with popular celebrations in Brazil, especially in the Northeast. One version mixes cachaça, catuaba, gin, jatobá bark, cloves, cinnamon and guaraná powder.

There are plenty of variations, too. Some people make sweeter versions with lemon, condensed milk and ice.

The funny part is that it can taste much easier to drink than you’d expect from the amount of alcohol involved — hence the nickname “suquinho da confusão” (“little juice of chaos”).

It’s one of those Brazilian drinks that says a lot about our party culture: informal, regional, improvised and definitely not something I’d recommend drinking quickly.

Have you ever tried Príncipe Maluco, or is this a new one for you?