Velho Alambique Ouro is a cachaça from the town of Santa Tereza, Serra Gaucha in Rio Grande do Sul state, in Southern Brasil. Velho Alambique refers to “Old Alembic” or “Old Distillery” in English.

Finding information particularly background on this brand has proven a little tricky. They do have a website. Unfortunately, a lot of the information isn’t translating too well using simple translation tools available to me. Regrettably my Portuguese is non existent.

From what I can gather sugar cane has been cultivated on the site where Velho Alambique cachaça is produced for over 100 years. From what I understand the cachaça is produced by the Remus family. Information here suggests that Velho Alambique cachaca’s began as recently as 2010. But as I have said the translation is all a bit rudimentary!

So I will instead focus upon what I know about the actual cachaça for review today. This cachaça is aged for upto 2 years in a combination of oak, ex-grappa and Angico wood casks. The individual cachaca’s are then blended together to create Velho Alambique Ouro. The cachaça has the Producto do Organico designation on the label. This means that all the production methods used when making this cachaça are completely organic. So no pesticides or other chemical nasties.

The cachaça producers are quite keen on being seen to have this kind of production and it something which is much sought after amongst the smaller producers.

Distillation occurs on small Copper Pot Stills. It is bottled at 39% ABV. Presentation wise it is more an “old style” cachaça with a tall bottle with a very wide neck and big metal screw cap. The neck is much wider than you find in the UK and Europe. Quite normal for cachaça though.

Whilst the presentation is a little old fashioned it does have a certain appeal. A bottle of this cacacha retails at around $R80 (around £17). Were this particular cachaça to reach Europe I would expect a price tag of around £30.The cachaça is available in various bottle sizes from 160ml to 700ml.

It is quite a young cachaça but it is very well though of and has won numerous awards.

In the glass this cachaça is a straw/white wine colour. Nosing Velho Alambique this is quite an unusual cachaça. I have not reviewed one with a similar profile to this cachaça.

The nose is difficult to describe. It’s quite smoky with an almost “burnt” type of profile. It smells like scorched earth. Really unusual. Further nosing reveals vanilla, toasted oak, coconut and some fiery notes of chilli pepper.

As the cachaça settles in the glass the smokiness does subside a little. Once this happens you get a bit more of the fruitiness, lurking in this cachaça. I can’t say I have noticed any tomato ketchup in a rum or cachaça before.

I am getting those kind of notes with this. Tomato Juice and a spiciness  bit like a Bloody Mary. Pulped Apple, vinegar, cider vinegar, tomatoes, bit of chilli powder. This is a really interesting nose!

Sipped it tastes a bit more like a conventional cachaça. Its a very smooth and very tasty one as well. Lots of different flavours in the mix. These are more familiar and more conventional than the nose. Vanilla, a touch of double cream, toffee and some slight grassiness.

This cachaça then has an extra layer of flavour. A slight mintiness and a slightly sharp note ( a bit like Grappa). The tomato and spice comes back a little more on the mid palate and slightly in the finish.

Really nice and really different. The finish (with this just being 39% ABV is short) but what is there overall is really pretty good. It just would have been nicer if it were a little longer. That said we have another really enjoyable and easy to sip cachaça. This has a little twist which helps it stand out from the crowd.

Well worth giving it a try.