Novo Fogo Barrel-Aged Cachaça

Nose - grass, lemon, tangerine, banana, caramel, vanilla, sweet floral notes, mushroom, cinnamon, mild ethanol burn. Taste - grass, sour apple, lemon zest, coconut, cherry, sweet floral and vegetal notes, caramel, underripe banana, pineapple, vanilla, ginger, cinnamon, mild to moderate alcohol bite, finishing medium short with sweet grass, sour citrus, and ginger flavors. The nose is grassy and floral with various fruits, caramels, and vanillas. There’s a slight vegetal, fungal funk that makes me think of fresh mushrooms. The palate is sweet, sour, and grassy. There’s underripe banana and pineapple in the mix as well. A citrusy, gingery zing presents in the mid palate and carries through the relatively short finish. I’ve included this cachaca in my rum series, as it’s rather close to an aged rhum agricole. The barrel aging here has infused some nice sweetness, softening some of the rougher edges. I don’t love this, but it’s less disappointing than the Clement I reviewed yesterday. This is on the upper end of average for me, but average nonetheless.

Cachaça tasting with some buddies. My first experience with this beautiful liquor. Tried to take notes of my impressions as I was sampling. Bitter and kinda harsh at first. A drop of water made a big difference. Vanilla, banana bread, spices, faint wood, mild short finish.

Bourbon like taste mixed with bananas and nuts when neat. Pretty good

Rating: 13/23 I've never had Cachaça before and I'm interested to try it. E: It's a very light straw color. Really, it's a tad duller, possibly grayer. I suspect it hasn't been aged terribly long (which is probably a good thing to maintain its natural character). N: It has this kind of light funkiness that immediately reminds me a bit of an añejo tequila. Exploring it some more, it becomes obvious that it really smells like rhum agricole. I mean, of course. I get a bit of straw and some quite green banana. I smell a hint of sort of a chalky, grainy flavor that reminds me a little of oats, and there's some light brown sugar to go with it. Perhaps a dash of baking spices (allspice and cinnamon) too. There's a dash of a firework smokiness blending nicely with the hogo. It's a fairly light nose though. There are lots of tropical fruits coming out. Banana, orange, maybe a dash of lime. If I'm not imagining things, there is a faint hint of vanilla merging into the faintest hint of spearmint. It's sort of like a less aggressively edgy Plantation Xaymaca nose - complex and edgy. P: It's light. It definitely makes me think of a lightly aged rhum agricole. I get that creamy oat graininess a bit, mixed with a lot of vegetal flavor that is typical of rhum agricole, though the squash element is less pronounced here. There's a lot of green banana in this and it's mixed with a bit of vanilla. I really don't get any of the fireworks that I thought I got a hint of on the nose, but I do get some hogo and kind of a bitterness. There is a bit of an alcohol bite to this too. There's plenty of fruit, though less than I was expecting (aside from the green banana) and it's a bit harder than I expected to pick out the individual ones. I do get the green banana, and also some citrus. Maybe pineapple? The baking spices make it through here too, with some clove added to the allspice and cinnamon. I'm not sure that I actually get any brown sugar on the palate though. Maybe just a tad There's something a little bit nutty here too that plays with the green banana a bit. F: The kind of standard rhum agricole vegetal flavor and the sort of oatiness persist for a bit, with a faint layer of fruit gradually rising up a bit from underneath. That green banana lingers as well, but it isn't as good now. I do get a tad more brown sugar now. On the finish, it's largely light fruit with coasting of mild funk that makes me think a little bit of sweet potato with a bit of baking spices (allspice, cinnamon, clove) I've never been much of a fan of rhum agricole and I can't say I'm really a fan of this either. It's been a fun experience to try though and I'm glad to have a better understanding of what cachaça is. The flavors are all a bit mellower than I thought they'd be. I think that the barrel is responsible to a fair extent, though that isn't all bad because it also tamed the alcohol a bit. The barrel doesn't really add much character here, but the flip side of that is that it lets the natural rum flavor shine through. To start trying to identify a rating, I don't see this being less than a 10 (more likely an 11), but I also don't see it being greater than a 14. I had to do a cross-category comparison to come up with this range. I found this to be no worse than Sir Edward's 12, but no better than Plantation Xaymaca. Both of those did have more of an alcohol bite, which put the bite I thought I was getting from this in perspective. I do wish that this had been watered down less though because its flavor is a bit too mellow. Some more vibrancy would be nice. Realistically, I think this is going to land in the 12 to 13 range. I kind of want to rate it higher, but I really like Plantation Xaymaca's explosion of flavor better and that caps the rating. I think this means that I need to go with a 13. It's a low 13, but a 13 nonetheless.