Celebrate Earth Day with Novo Fogo Cachaça

We’re counting down to and celebrating Earth Day with spirits brands changing the way we think and drink!

 

We asked the team at Novo Fogo about their sustainable way of life, how they plan to celebrate Earth Day, and of course, about the Novo Fogo Cachaça Bar Strength Bartender Challenge.  

 

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Tell us how  Novo  Fogo  celebrates the Earth/Brazil? 

April is Earth month, but for Novo Fogo our journey of making cachaça sustainably never stops! Since the beginning, our sugarcane farm has been USDA-certified 100% organic, our zero-waste distillery recycles all its byproducts, and we offset our non-production business emissions to make Novo Fogo overall carbon-negative. 

  

What about Earth Day? 

We’re calling special attention to the Novo Fogo Tree-Keeper program. We’ve teamed up with Seattle pro goalkeepers Stefan Frei, Kasey Keller, and Marcus Hahnemann, who all share our love for tasty drinks and the environment. For every one of Stefan’s saves this season, we contribute $100 to the Horus Institute, the Brazilian NGO that locally drives The Un-Endangered Forest project. Stefan Frei is also a painter, and he helped us design special-edition packaging for two Tree-Keeper products available on our website. 

  

What can you tell us about the Bar Strength Bartender Challenge? 

We want to go to Brazil with you! The Bar Strength Challenge was conceived to take the message of our Bar Strength Cachaça even farther. Novo Fogo Bar Strength Cachaça is the world’s first truly carbon-neutral spirits bottle – from true origin to destination, including the carbon footprint of their suppliers, distributors, freight, fuel, warehousing, etc. We want to see how you interpret the idea of environmentally-friendly drinking and channel it into a cocktail that embodies our values of caring for the earth. 

  

What should bartenders who are participating know? 

Environmentally-friendly cocktails can be broadly interpreted. It could be about minimizing waste or upcycling ingredients that would be otherwise tossed. Or it could be sourcing ingredients from nearby, thereby reducing the amount of fuel necessary to get them to your shaker. The possibilities are vast! 

  

Why is mixing sustainably important? 

Like chefs are a central link in the chain of getting food from the ground into people’s mouths, bartenders also have a prominent role in educating and communicating to consumers. Frankly, the topic of environmentalism can frequently be a bit of a bummer and has long been accompanied by much finger-wagging about what not to do. That is not fun. Cocktails are fun. Therefore, inviting people to the conversation about how to leave the earth a bit better than we found it is much more fun with a delicious cocktail in hand, and ideally that cocktail will also have been thoughtfully-crafted, too. 

 

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BUMBLEBEE  DAIQUIRI

This balanced Brazilian daiquiri is sweetened with earthy honey syrup as well as oleo saccharum, an aromatic citrus syrup that puts lime peels to good use instead of throwing them into the compost. If you’re not up to making oleo saccharum, replace it with another half-ounce of honey syrup. Your daiquiri will be less limey but delicious nonetheless. 

 

Ingredients: 

• 2 oz Novo Fogo Chameleon Cachaça  
• 1 oz organic lime juice 
• 1/2 oz raw honey syrup (equal parts raw honey dissolved in hot water) 
• 1/2 oz lime oleo saccharum  

Preparation: Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. *Oleo saccharum, remove the peel of at least five limes with a peeler and put the peels in a bowl (you can then juice the peel-less limes). Cover the peels with granulated sugar. With a muddler or wooden spoon, massage the sugar granules into the lime peels by firmly pressing. Transfer the peels and sugar into a Ziploc bag and press out the air before sealing. Store in the refrigerator for at least five hours or overnight to extract the liquid and oils from the lime peels. Strain the resulting lime syrup into a jar or bottle and you’re ready to go! 

  

 

CAIPIRINHA DA TERRA

 

Ingredients:  

• 2 oz Novo Fogo Silver Cachaça 
• 1 organic lime 
• 1 1/2 tbsp rapadura sugar* 

Preparation: Cut off both ends of the lime and slice it down the middle. Remove the pith and slice the lime into 8 pieces and add them to a shaker. Add rapadura sugar and muddle until the sugar is dissolved and the lime is squeezed of its juice. Add the cachaça and shake with ice. Dump everything into a tumbler and garnish with flowers. 

 *Rapadura is unrefined sugar made simply by evaporating sugarcane juice. It’s earthy and grassy and sweet. You can find it in granulated form or condensed in a block or loaf. If it’s the latter, shave off enough to make a heaping tablespoon. A Caipirinha made with rapadura sugar instead of white sugar is a true celebration of raw, unrefined plant ingredients that harmonize in a nuanced cocktail. 

  

 

PARANÁ PUNCH

This Brazilian sour brings together two delightful beverages from southern Brazil: Novo Fogo Organic Cachaça and erva-mate (aka yerba mate). Mate is a traditional South American tea made with the leaves of a forest shrub that are high in caffeine and antioxidants. The flavor of Brazilian erva-mate is like robust, earthy green tea. It can be enjoyed hot or cold; cold mate tea is commonly mixed with citrus or herbs and is called tereré.  

 

Ingredients: 

• 1 1/2 oz Novo Fogo Chameleon Cachaça  
• 1 oz organic lemon juice 
• 1 oz erva-mate tea syrup* 
• 5 mint leaves 
• 1 1/2 oz sparkling wine 

Preparation: Add all ingredients except for sparkling wine in a shaker and shake with ice. Pour over ice and top with sparkling wine, stirring to combine. Garnish with fresh mint. 

 *Erva-mate tea syrup, bring 1 cup of water to a boil and turn off the heat. Dissolve 1 cup of sugar in the water. Steep 6 bags of bagged mate tea (such as Guayaki) in the hot syrup for 15-20 minutes, then remove the tea bags and chill the syrup.  

  

 

TROPICAL ITCH

This tropical drink from Rumba in Seattle, WA, features Novo Fogo’s Tanager cachaça expression, which was finished in reclaimed Brazilian zebrawood called araribá for a distinctively earthy flavor. The Un-Endangered Forest is Novo Fogo’s reforestation project to save native tree species like araribá by planting trees in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. 

  

Ingredients: 

• 1 oz Novo Fogo Tanager Cachaça 
• 1 oz Noble Oak Bourbon 
• 3/4 oz organic lemon juice 
• 1/2 passion fruit syrup 
• 1/4 oz orgeat  

Preparation: Combine all ingredients in a shaker with crushed ice and shake. Dump everything into a tall glass and add more crushed ice. Garnish with fresh mint. Though this drink will scratch that tropical itch, feel free to additionally garnish with a bamboo back scratcher just to be safe.