Weber Haus Cachaca Premium Black Aged 3 Years. Weber Haus are one of the largest and most celebrated Cachaça producers in Brasil. To date, they have over 100 national and international awards. Products from the H.Weber distillery are available in 19 countries.

One of the reasons I first began exploring Cachaça was due to a chance meeting with Leszek Wedzicha, who was working at Bristol Rum Festival last summer. Leszek was promoting the Weber Haus line up of Cachaça. I was very impressed. Prior to this I had not tried any aged Cachaça. I have stayed in contact with Leszek ever since. Earlier this year I attended the Manchester Cachaça festival and tried a great many more Cachaça’s. After speaking with Leszek and other Cachaça producers and enthusiasts I decided to begin exploring Cachaça more.

The Cachaça community in Brasil and those promoting Cachaça in Europe are very keen to see more Cachaça reviews in English. Currently most reviews and articles on Cachaça are in Portuguese. Often these pieces are not widely read outside of Brasil. By writing in English I can hopefully help spread the word about Cachaça to a more global audience. Some Cachaça brands wish to expand into Europe. As a result they need distribution. Others sell so much product domestically that they are not so concerned about this. Cachaça really is big business in Brasil.  All producers wish to see Cachaça’s profile raised though to compete with other spirits. Many would just like to see Cachaça recognised as a quality spirit in its own right and not seen as “Brasilian Rum”.

The H. Weber distillery which produces Weber Haus Cachaça is currently run by the Ivoti family, who have been involved in Cachaça production for over 70 years. They follow strict organic Cachaça production and produce around 500,000 litres of spirits per year. Despite the size and scope of the distillery Weber Haus Cachaça is still produced in small batches in Copper Pot Stills.

Weber Haus have a large number of different Cachaça’s in their line up. This is one of their more premium offerings. As a result it is housed in a wonderful decanter style bottle with a sizeable chunky synthetic wooden topped stopper. The bottle also notes some of the gold medals this Cachaça has won at National and International spirit festivals.

Weber Haus Cachaca Premium Black is aged for 3 years. Two years in French Oak (ex cognac casks) and a further year in Balsam. Only the “heart” of the distillate is used in production of this Cachaça. The “heads and tails” are not used. Whilst this results in less distillate Weber Haus feel the end product is of much higher quality as a result.

In the glass Weber Haus Cachaça Premium Black is a very light almost white wine like colour.

Nosing Weber Haus Cachaca Premium Black, it is quite a grassy and quite peppery Cachaça.  You also get a lot of sweet sugar cane notes and a very vegetal earthiness on the nose. Further nosing reveals some lighter, delicate, more floral notes. Aroma’s of Cashew nut and Vanilla are enveloped by a very light floral almost rose like note. It’s quite sweet with a good hit of ginger and all spice going on as well.

Sipping Weber Haus Cachaca Premium Black – the Cachaça is quite different to the nose. It has an almost aniseed like hit – fennel seed perhaps. This gives way to a very sweet mid palate with a really nice balance of woody spices. Notes of allspice and ginger. It’s very light and refreshing, yet each sip brings with it added layers of complexity. This is a Cachaça to be savoured and taken slowly.

It has a really nice balance to it and a really good finish which is spicy but not overpowering. A very cleansing feel on the palate. There is a nice hit of tobacco on the finish which is not overpowering but adds a good layer of complexity to the mix.

I didn’t mix this, as it simply too good for any of that kind of nonsense.

As I’m finding with a lot of the “medium” aged Cachaça’s this is initially what seems quite a straight forward spirit. However, much like Bajan rums these Cachaça’s really do have layers of complexity and wonderful subtleties which make them really interesting. I’ll make another Bajan rum comparison and say that this is more Doorly’s XO or Premise, than say Criterion or Dominus.

Weber Haus does have some of its line up available on Master of Malt at the moment, though distribution is limited. I’ll be picking a few of their range up as soon as I can.