HOW TO TASTE?
1. Visual Analysis
The first step in the tasting process is cachaça’s visual analysis. For better evaluation, we suggest the following: bright and clean place; the beverage to be placed in a transparent cup, preferably with a cup with stem, so your fingers do not interfere or its digital, clean and free of odors, including those characteristic "closet" and relatively thin; it has a white surface, a paper or cardboard, which, positioned behind the glass (half full), will allow the vision of the net without interference from objects that may eventually find themselves in the environment.
2. Olfactory Analysis
For this step tasting, standardize a distance between the cup and nose, such that a stay close to one another, usually three to four inches is sufficient. It is interesting that there is little interference odoriferous environment, hands or body perfumes.
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3. Analysis Retro-Olfactory
This analysis is extremely important, since it uses the sensory apparatus mouth, throat and nose, and lets you highlight or discover new flavors of cachaça. To verify this criterion, inspire partially filling the lungs with air, put the cachaça in your mouth and feel the swallow, and only then slowly exhale. Analyze the set that is in your mouth: the sweetness, acidity, spiciness, alcoholic flavor, the flavor of the wood, persistence. A good cachaça keeps the good features (which you've already rated in the previous item - Olfactory Analysis) for two seconds or more. The longer, the better.
4. The Final Assessment
For the final assessment, must consider the whole work. At this time, remember that a good cachaça and sugar plantation depends on the treatment it received if the sample was taken at the right time, the time it took between the cane cutting and grinding, water quality for the preparation of the wort , hygiene and quality of fermentation and careful distillation, and also the appropriate and balanced use of wood without subterfuge to mask the defects of the original cachaça. As it is not possible to know every detail of production have to trust our senses, i.e., we have to evaluate the appearance, odor and flavor of rum fit together and how much it pleases you.
Article published in Portuguese by Mapa da Cachaça - June 3, 2013
Pictures of Rodrigo Bitar, Commercial and Marketing Director at Fazenda Libanus Agroindústria Ltda.
Record Tasting GEDEC