Tijuca Blended Brazilian Rum. Production of Sugar Cane Spirits in Brasil is a huge business. Many people in the rest of the world consider Cachaca, the native Brasilian Sugar Cane Spirit a bit of a niche product. In Brasil, where it is produced it has an absolutely huge foothold in the domestic market.

Over 1.3 billion litres of cachaca are produced each year and only around 1% of this is exported. As far as aged and premium cachaca is concerned the percentage is even smaller. Put simply the demand in Brasil for such spirits means they simply do not have to export their product. Demand in many instances outweighs supply.

It is worth noting at his point that rum sells ar (mound 1.7 billion litres worldwide. So the Cachaca market is much bigger than people outside of Brasil realise.

Tijuca Blended Brazilian Rum is in actual fact cachaca. The various cachaça’s used in the blend are produced in Rio de Janeiro, which is most famous for the Magnifica brand of cachaca. Unfortunately I do not know the distileries involved in the production of the cachaca used in this blend.

Tijuca as the website domain name shows is a French based brand. The cachaça’s used in this blend are all made on Pot Stills. So we don’t have a more industrial style cachaca produced on a multi column still. The cachaca is produced from fresh sugar cane juice which is harvested on the estates which house the distilleries. So this is an artisan blend.

The cachaça’s are aged in “wooden barrels endemic to Brasil” before being blended and finished in France in oak barrels which used to contain White Port.

On the Tijuca Spirits website they detail that “cachaca” is a protected denomination, which can only be produced in Brasil. So they are opting to call their spirit rum as it not produced completely in Brasil.

Whilst I have not been able to establish the “Fazenda’s” which have produced the various cachaça’s in this blend, their is an infographic on the website which shows 5 distilleries/fazendas all around Rio de Janeiro state.

Tijuca (Portuguese pronunciation: [tʃiˈʒukɐ]) (meaning marsh or swamp in the Tupi language, from ty (“water”) and îuk (“rotten”)^[1]) is a neighbourhood of the Northern Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It comprises the region of Saens Peña and Afonso Pena squares.

Tijuca Blended Brazilian Rum comes housed in a round stubby bottle with a picture of an exotic bird on the front. It comes with a chunky cork stopper. A 70cl bottle set you back around €55 (mostly available in France) and it is bottled at 40% ABV. You can pick up a bottle via the website or you could try this retailer as well.

I don’t have much else by way of information so lets see how this one goes down.

In the glass, we have medium/golden brown spirit. A standard aged rum colour if you like.

The nose is vegetal, with lots of sweet sugar cane and a distinct “freshly mowed field” aroma. It’s nicely integrated with notes of sweet port wine and some icing sugar. There is a nice balance of nuttiness and oak spices with hints of vanilla and nutmeg. The wood influence gives this rum/cachaca a lovely depth and balance.

Sipped it is a little more acidic with notes of lime juice and marmalade. The initial entry is spicy with a kick of white pepper. As you sip more Tijuca Blended Brazilian Rum becomes sweeter – with a nice harmony of grassy sugar cane, vanilla and some tangy tropical fruits.

The mid palate reveals a slightly soapy taste which lingers on into the finish. It’s quite creamy but it works nicely alongside the sweeter flavours and grassy sugar cane. The wood/oak floats along in the background giving a slightly spicy and warming kick to the spirit.

The finish is warming and a more than reasonable length with a nice mixture of creamy/soapiness and warming slightly drying oak spices. All in all this is a really nicely put together and blended cachaca/rum.

I didn’t mix with this cachaca. Firstly the presentation would suggest it is aimed more at the sipping market and secondly….I just enjoyed it so much neat I felt it would be a waste.

Having not tried Tijuca Brazilian Blended Rum prior to it being put in the ex-White Port casks I do not know how much of an influence it has had on the spirit. That said if you hadn’t told me it was aged in an ex-White Port Cask I would never have guessed.

So depending on how skilled you consider me to be you can take it that it maybe didn’t have that much influence.

That being said still a very pleasant spirit and nice to see some cachaca (even if its called rum) being brought onto the market by us Europeans.