Cahaca Anunciada. Or Cachaça Announced in English. This cachaça is distributed by MusA. They are a producer of all manner of spirits, beers and liqueurs. Based at Sitio Caminho do Sol (Sun Valley Farm).

Whilst they do produce Cachaça they seem to focus around “aguardente de frutas”. This adds a bit of a twist to the cachaça, as you will read later.

They produce a number of fruit based brandies and liqueurs as well as cachaça. The MusA website does not have much information regarding cachaça. I have managed to cobble together some facts to help with this review.

Cachaca Anunicado is produced in Itajuba, Minas Gerais, a region with a real history of quality cachaça production. The sugar cane is grown in the Serra da Mantiqueira (Mountain Range Mantiqueira), cut manually and the entire process is organic, without any chemical involvement. The sugar cane is harvested and crushed immediately before being brewed.

The cachaça is double distilled in Copper Alembic Pot Stills in small batches. Cachaça Anunciada is aged for 6 years in Oak Casks before being transferred to MusA barrels. These barrels previously contained MusA’s famed Gold Banana liqueur. It is bottled at 40% ABV. In Brasil a 700ml bottle retails at around R$50 or £10. If this does hit Europe – assuming it hasn’t already, I would expect retail of around £40 plus.

As can be seen from the photos Cachaca Anunciada comes in a bell/tear shaped bottle 3/4 style bottle. It’s stylish and the minimalist look is nice and modern. You also get a cardboard sleeve with a sailing boat and some palm trees (quite an unusual design for cachaça).

When poured Cachaça Anunciada is a light golden brown colour. On the nose you are met with soft chewy toffee notes, sugar cane and some fruity banana and papaya. Further nosing reveals more caramel and soft gentle oak notes – a touch of vanilla and some light honey.

Sipping reveals a surprising amount of ginger and some black pepper on the entry. Not really present on the nose but definitely showing themselves now. Alongside this the notes of toffee and honey mingle alongside the more spicy notes, adding balance and complexity to the drink.

Further sips reveal a light smokiness and a real sweetness. Notes of almost ripe banana and toffee appear again especially on the mid palate. Notes of oak and some cinnamon make an appearance as well.

Cachaca Anunciada is a very light and not at all grassy style of cachaça – it is more like an aged Rhum Agricole in many ways. It perhaps carries a bit more molasses like toffee and caramel sweetness though. This may be the banana liqueur cask influence. Despite being housed in a liqueur barrel for six months it still shows a true ABV of 40% with the Hydrometer, which is good to see.

The finish isn’t very long – I don’t find many cachaça’s do have a long finish is light yet spicy with a lot of the black pepper again. Nice notes of cashew nut and some vanilla.

This is a very interesting cachaça in that it is both sweet and fiery at the same time. It’s really quite a distinctive product.  I haven’t had a cachaça I could really compare to this one.  Maybe Cambeba is as close as I have found in terms of profile but this is still a bit different to that.

In terms of putting cachaça into a “weird” cask, I guess you could say in the rum world Plantation do similar things with their rums, when they put them in the various “Ferrand” casks. I’ve enjoyed rums from Plantation, such as their Barbados 12 Year, finished in a Wild Cherry Cask. Which was very tasty and this cachaça, is also pretty tasty as well.

Trying cachaça, such as this makes me realise just how far away the UK market is at times. We really aren’t getting the “good stuff”, a lot of the time. Despite my reservations about the 2nd maturation, in the liqueur barrel, this is really quite subtle and very nicely balanced.