Caipirinha!

The national drink of Brazil is caipirinha. And might I say they taste a LOT better than the onces we served you at our goodbye party. This is the real stuff. It started in the Pantanal at the campfire. I helped the guide make them. They were very, very fresh as we still had to pick the lemons from the tree. I had to shine the torch so that we could see the snakes.....a job very very carefully accomplished by me. We did not see any...This guide took the job of making the drink very seriously. He washed the lemons, but have you ever seen anyone washing the ice! And I mean, this water came from a well and had to be cleared before you could drink it (not to speak of the water from the shower, it came straight from the river and was brown. We decided we would probably be cleaner after four days of not using the shower so we did not). But back to the ice. The ice is already made of cleared water....sooooo I was a bit confused by this strange move, but also kinda touched by his devotion of making us this drink. So after a lot of washing he crushed the lemons and the sugar (lots!!), put the cachaça in (the alcohol made out of sugarcane) and added the ice. And that is all, if you leave the washing stuff behind, there is to making this drink. The cachaça is very cheap in the supermarket, only 2.5 euro per 1 liter bottle. It is also quite cheap in restaurants and bars. They do not only make them with cachaça, but also with other types of alcohol. They do not only make them with lemon, but with any kind of fruit you wish, mango, strawberry, abacaxi (portuguees for pineapple), maracuja, or the mix of them all. Its kinda like the Bubba shrimp scene in Forrest Gump....Lots of variaties. Hey, it is Brazil!!!!