Millions Of Brazilians Can’t Be Wrong

Cachaça, the national spirit of Brazil, is fighting for the respect and recognition it deserves, says Sally Easton MW

Cachaca has over 400 years of heritage. From its earliest days in the first Portuguese settlements in Brazil to the style bars of Berlin and New York, it is the third most consumed spirit on the planet. But those not associated with Brazil, or perhaps the cocktail culture, are unlikely to have made its acquaintance. So where are the missing masses? Who is making up the numbers?

The spirit is distilled from the fermented juice of sugar cane and the industry is at pains to point out its difference to rum which is distilled from fermented molasses, the brown syrup obtained from sugar during refining.

The Brazilians categorise cachaça according to its method of production. Some 1.3 billion litres are produced each year, of which 1 billion litres is “industrial” cachaça made with continuous stills. The remaining 300m litres of “artisan” cachaça is made with pot stills. Maria das Vitórias, president of the Brazilian programme for the development of cachaça (PBDAC) says, “The sugar cane harvest is the same in both processes, by hand. Both [methods] can have high quality or lower quality; everything depends on the quality control of the process.”

Cachaça comes in “white” and aged styles. The white, unaged cachaça is thought best for cocktail mixing, and constitutes the significant majority of production. ”Aged cachaça,” according to José Lucio, commercial director of the Brazilian Cachaça Institute, “is stored in large wooden barrels for two or three years and should be drunk pure, iced or on the rocks.”

To qualify as aged cachaça, the spirit must be aged for at least one year. Lucio says, “The function of the barrel in the ageing process is to give colour, flavour and scent. We usually store the cachaça in Brazilian wood barrels like balsamo, amburana, jequitiba, grapia and others, which give a ‘Brazilian’ scent, flavour and colour.”

Despite an estimated 30,000 producers, and 5,000 cachaça brands, there are only a few large-scale producers. The PBDAC says the top 10 producers account for about 85% of production. Since the PBDAC was formed in 1997, exports grew from 900,000 litres to 14.8m litres in 2002. This represents about 1% of total cachaça production, and it goes to more than 70 countries. But it’s the 184m people in Brazil who help to push cachaça up the global consumption charts.

The PBDAC figures show a massive decline in import share for Paraguay from 28% a couple of years ago; a doubling of share for Portugal; Argentina a new entry at number six, and the UK share tripling. Brazil is trying to get cachaça redefined. Producers are in talks with the World Customs Organisation to define the product, and protect it against similar style products from other countries. At the moment, for the US and the EU, cachaça enters the market as “rum and tafia”. Yet in the US, for example, tequila and pisco have their own classification.

The case is being made that cachaça is unique to Brazil due to its longevity of production and provenance. For EU legislation the top category for spirits is a “quality product made in a delimited area”, like Scotch, for example. The Brazilians argue this would go a long way to promoting the product on the international stage, as well as creating “uniqueness”, so important for marketing purposes.

Since 2002, exports have fallen back to 10.2m litres in 2004. Maria das Vitórias says, “We thought by 2006 we would have our denomination of origin (DOC) controlled – Brazil. Now we see how difficult it is to achieve this recognition.” Meanwhile, the long process of redefinition looks to be taking its toll on the global penetration of cachaça.

Market growth

In the UK, industry players estimate the market size between 15,000 and 20,000 cases. While not a direct comparison, very little Brazilian rum is imported to the UK, so HMC&E figures for imports of Brazilian rum and tafia showing a 60% increase in releases from bond for 2004 over 2003 give a reasonable picture for cachaça. For measurement purposes alone, a unique export code would be beneficial.

The consensus is that while cachaça is in growth, the UK is just scratching the surface; as Latin and Brazilian theme bars expand, so will cachaça.

Established brands in the UK are Cachaça 51 and Pitu. Robert Bastong, international sales director of Underberg AG, European brand owners of Pitú says, “Cachaça is growing slowly but steadily, and differently. Normally the UK takes the lead with new things but the UK is lagging behind if you consider German sales of cachaça.

“Over the last two years some aged cachaça is coming to the UK but aged styles are not really the trend from Brazil, where cachaça is as vodka is for the Russians. They drink normal white cachaça.”

Bastong adds, “In the UK, we have seen 25% growth each year from 2001 and aim for more this year. Our route to market is the on-trade; we are successfully positioning Pitu at top events such as Diesel and Vogue parties.”

 A few new brands have appeared on the UK market in the last couple of years, Samba and Cana, and Tucano among them. But it is Sagatiba which has made the biggest splash courtesy of Saatchi and Saatchi. René de Gruiter, commercial director at Sagatiba says, “We’ve launched in Italy, the Netherlands and the UK. The first reactions are the same; people love the packaging, they love the product.”

Sagatiba is brand new, even in Brazil. De Gruiter says, “It is a premium product, made with a multi-distillation process – at least three-times distilled. This makes it much smoother, more versatile, more mixable than just with lemon; it is a much cleaner product. We’re already selling more than we expected in the UK. No one really knows what the size of the cachaça category could be.”

The BBC’s recent programme about Saatchi & Saatchi said the company is spending £20m on its global marketing campaign. De Gruiter says, “In the UK, we’ve targeted the on-trade, we’ve seeded Sagatiba into the top style bars, and in the off-trade Selfridges lists it. Because of the documentary, we’ve almost had to look for more off-trade listings.”

Such a high profile campaign by one company in the face of the growing appeal of the latino lifestyle and cocktail culture, could see the cachaça category take off.

Top 10 export markets’ share in 2004

1. Germany 17%
2. Portugal 11.3%
3. USA 9.1%
4. Italy 7.2%
5. Paraguay 7%
6. Argentina 6.9%
7. Spain 5.9%
8. Netherlands 5.9%
9. Uruguay 5.9%
10. UK 3.2%

Source: PBDAC