Nika Cocktail – Recipe

Nika
Advertisements
Quick Step-By-Step Nika Recipe Video

Nika Cocktail

5 from 1 vote Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

193

kcal
ABV

29%

Total time

3

minutes

See how to make a Nika cocktail

Ingredients

  • 1 tsp 1 Gum Syrup

  • 1 tsp 1 Lemon Juice

  • 2 dashes 2 Orange Bitters

  • 1 oz 1 Cocchi Americano

  • 2 oz 2 Cachaça

Directions

  • Technique: Simple Stir
  • Combine all ingredients in the mixing glass.
  • Add ice to the mixing glass. Stir the ingredients for 10 – 15 seconds. Try to avoid over-diluting the drink.
  • Strain into a glass.
  • Garnish:
  • Lemon peel.

Recipe Video

What Does The Nika Taste Like?

The Nika taste like a lightly bittersweet and herbal soju. The ingredients pair nicely and are strong while not overwhelming. It’s pretty lovely. I came up with the Nika to celebrate one of my favorite stories, One Piece. As of writing, chapter 1044 was just released, and the main protagonist, Luffy, has undergone a massive story-changing transformation. I love One Piece, and I don’t try to hide that.

I wanted the base spirit to be cachaça because, in the SBS of volume 56, someone had asked the author, Oda, if the story took place in our real world, what the nationalities of each character would be. Oda replied that the main character, Luffy, would be Brazilian. Cachaça turned out to be an excellent choice. Even though it’s more closely related to rum than vodka, it has a very lightly sweet and fresh green grassy vodka-like taste. I don’t know why I don’t use it more often, but it’s beautiful. I feel like I, along with many others, woefully underutilize cachaça, and it comes together nicely in this bright sunny cocktail.

Related Articles

Advertisements
Advertisements

Discover More Classics

Advertisements

Caipirinha – Classic Recipe & History

Caipirinha
Advertisements

Caipirinha

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: Brazilian
Servings

1

servings
Calories

231

kcal
ABV

31%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make the a classic Caipirinha.

Ingredients

  • 3 wedges 3 Lime or Green Unripe Lemon

  • 1/2 oz 1/2 Simple Syrup

  • 2 oz 2 Cachaça

Directions

  • Technique: Build In Glass
  • Muddle 3 lime wedges in the serving glass to get the juice and oils out of the lime.
  • Add crushed ice to the glass.
  • Pour the cachaça and simple syrup into the glass and mix it all together.

Notes

Featured Video

History Of The Caipirinha

The earliest Caipirinha recipe I can find comes from the 1963 book “The Brazilian Cookbook” by Irene Moliterno. I have a hard time finding anything on this cocktail before the 1960s. It doesn’t help that the word caipirinha is a common term in Portuguese, meaning “little country folk.” For that reason, this was a very difficult cocktail to research, and it was easier to search for occurrences of cachaça and açúcar together. This was also an issue because cachaça is made from sugar. Trust me; I searched not only English but primarily Portuguese language works. Today the word Caipirinha is wholly associated with the drink.

Although first mentioned in the 1960s the Caipirinha wasn’t written about much in the 1990s. By the 1990s, many cocktail books included a caipirinha recipe, and the cocktails exploded in popularity in the 2000s. No one knows the origins of the Caipirinha, but it most likely originated out of the southern end of Brazil in Sao Paulo. Some theorize it was invented during WWI but who knows? I have my idea below that it is somehow related to an older Brazilian drink called the “Kaingang de Palmas,” but I have no evidence to say they are related; it’s just that they are very similar.

Is Rum A Substitute For Cachaça?

The national cocktail of Brazil, the Caipirinha, is a fantastic drink with a sweet citrus and vegetal flavor. I don’t usually get particular about stuff like this, but If you are not using cachaça, you are not making a Caipirinha. Even though it is classified the same as rum, rum is not a substitute for cachaça. While rum has a sweet toasted dark caramel taste, cachaça tastes more like a grassy and lightly sweet vodka. Cachaça is what makes the drink, and using rum would turn it into a daiquiri.

The Caipirinha’s Potential Indigenous Roots.

Not to say there is a direct line to draw between these two drinks, but I found the Caipirinha is very similar to an older traditional Brazilian drink called the Kaingang de Palmas. In the 1937 Book “Ensaios de Ethologia Brasileira” Brazilian ethnologist, Herbert Baldus, mentions how the indigenous Kaingang villages in southern Brazil celebrate June festivities “Festa Junina” by making a drink of cachaça, sugar, young unripe corn (milho verde), and water. The drink is called Kaingang de Palmas, meaning Kaingang applause or Kaingang clap/cheer. The Kaingang were an indigenous people whose area included Sao Paulo, the believed origin of the Caipirinha. Like the Kaingang de Palmas using unripe corn, a traditional Brazilian Caipirinha is made with unripe green lemons. Not limes. Caipirinha loosely translates to “little country person,” which is what the indigenous peoples were seen as by city dwellers.

I understand this is a stretch, and there is no evidence I can find saying that they are related, but there are many similarities between the Caipirinha and the Kaingang de Palmas.

Recipe Resources

Related Articles

Advertisements
Advertisements

Discover More Classics

Advertisements