I No Go to Rio

I spent Mardi Gras at the neighbors', starting out with a bowl of jambalaya (just chicken, but nice and spicy), progressing to Ritz crackers and different cheeses and salami and a Yellow Tail Pinot Noir. (Too sweet for me.) And entertaining their striped gray cat and dalmatian when there were no other hands available or willing. Oh, and heckling Chris Matthews. It's hard to out-heckle him though.

One of my calendar's drinks for Mardi Gras is the Caipirinha, made with cachaca (little cedilla missing on the c, but Americans don't give a damn about those foreign diacriticals), sugar, and lime wedges all muddled together. I was surprised I could find cachaca locally. From the dust on it, I was the first person to pick it up in a while.

My recipe calls for turbinato sugar, which I had on hand. Initial review: this is the national drink of Brazeel? I like the sweet-sour clash, but the alcohol tastes muddy to me. It doesn't taste clean. Maybe it's an acquired taste and I need a business trip to Rio to acquire it.

Today I tried it again. The recipe online called for muscovado sugar. I had that too. Though it was a little hard. Like a f*cking brick. After banging it on the counter, the animals flying for cover, the chunks looked like I"d just pulled them out from under the back porch. I had a better idea: I used a teaspoon or so of brown sugar and some candied ginger.

Second review: not much change. The alcohol itself still doesn't do much for me. Plain rum would probably go down smoother. I could hardly taste the ginger, which was a surprise. At least I can console myself that I'm the only person in this neck of the woods with alcohol-induced visions of partying the night away in Rio.