Brazil's history of hardwood aging spirits - Matt Pietrek returns

Amburana wood

Aging in exotic hardwoods is a hallmark of cachaça that differentiates it from other cane spirits, but wasn’t always the case. The early days of rum and cachaça weren’t about five years of artisanal aging in hand selected casks. Rather, early new world cane spirits were predominantly rough, unaged spirits, made from whatever fermentable byproduct a sugar plantation had on hand. Their primary consumers of these early spirits included enslaved people working on sugar cane plantations and sailors plying the triangle trade routes.

This isn’t to say that the early cachaça had no aging whatsoever. In the 17th and 18th centuries, metal and plastic tanks were yet to be invented. Wooden casks were the primary storage for all manner of colonial produce, including sugar, molasses, and cane spirits.  However, aging wasn’t the intent; casks merely held freshly made cachaça for the (usually) short interval between distillation and consumption. 

The early days of cachaça production was oriented around Brazil’s coastal lowlands. As the 1700s dawned, gold and diamonds were discovered in the inland area of Minas Gerais, kicking off a mass migration of fortune seekers and workers away from the coastal regions. Naturally cachaça was one of the products shipped to the burgeoning mine industry, so started to spend more time in casks. Eventually cachaça production sprang up in the inland areas as well. Surrounded by forests abundant with hardwoods like Amburana and Balsamo, Brazil’s tradition of aging in hardwoods flourished. To this day, no other region comes close to Brazil’s use of wood other than oak for aging spirits.