WORDS Declan Johnston 

PHOTOGRAPHY Matthew Wilson

“You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.” As is well known to beer drinkers and writers of forewords to books about beer everywhere, Frank Zappa had some pertinent theories. Accordingly, Ireland – a nation obsessed with relentlessly espousing the features of its national identity – is deeply wedded to its own drinks. It’s almost a relationship of fidelity too. There have been flirtations, sure. Aspirations to differentiate hints and bouquets and to discuss monopoles and talentos; desires to quaff cocktails in a trendy display of twenty-first century ebullience and refined hedonism in the same way Victorian well-to-dos spent the entire economic output of African colonies on penny farthings and Christmas crackers. These relationships have not developed beyond casual flings though. Well over half of all drinks consumed in Ireland are beers – a statistic matched only by the likes of Germany and the Czech Republic. Yet, every little while, genuinely exciting new drinks bringing flavours previously unheralded appear under the radar on the Irish market. Drinks that have little to do with ends and much to do with means. Rafael Agapito’s Fubá cachaça is one of those. 

Cachaça is a cultural phenomenon in Brazil. It is the spirit that defies Zappa’s first law of nationhood. A remarkable 1.3 billion litres, distilled only from fresh sugar cane juice, is consumed annually in caipirinhas, Brazil’s favourite cocktail. Cachaça is often mislabelled as rum. In fact, cachaça pre-dates rum by a century to the 1530s when Portuguese settlers in Brazil realised the potential in seemingly wasted sugar cane juice that had fermented under the sun. It was Dutch settlers from the north of Brazil carrying their knowledge of cachaça distillation and applying it to molasses in the Caribbean that produced rum. 

Rafael can recall his first encounter with cachaça fondly, “I was probably around eight years old and my grandfather taught me how to make a caipirinha, because he used to go to my parents house every Christmas and cook the Christmas dinner. As he was cooking he’d ask me to make him a drink and he taught me how. That smell reminds me of my grandfather.”

And the smell is the first thing that greets the senses. Aniseed is present, but not in the overpowering way it is in arak. The taste is decidedly herbal. Too raw by itself, sweeteners and cocktails provide a vehicle for the taste to express itself and that aroma carries right through. It’s not to everyone’s liking either, but it is a unique flavour that deserves tasting.

 

WE DIDN’T WANT TO MAKE THE MOST POPULAR, WE WANTED TO MAKE THE BEST

 

So comfortably at home in a Dublin bar, it’s hard to fathom that Rafael only arrived in Ireland in 2005. It was then too when he decided that he wanted to make a career out of bartending after a stint in an Irish bar in Portugal. Soon, he was entering and winning bartending contests. He has since represented Ireland four times at international competitions. The joy of bringing new creations to an unknowing audience provided an exhilaration that couldn’t be matched. So when the opportunity to do something larger arose – to create a whole new drink – it proved irresistible. 

The idea formed in his family home in Santos, late one night in 2010, while celebrating his brother Cassiano’s birthday. “It was during the ash clouds and my flight home had been delayed by eight hours. And when I got to São Paulo there had been a barbeque but everything had finished and it was just myself, my brother, his wife and my mother . We sat down and he said he’d got this amazing cachaça. Sitting there, he said, ‘people in Europe don’t know about this, do they? It would be great if they could have this over there’, and I said ‘why don’t we make our own brand?’” 

A passing conversation that could easily have been relegated to idle dream now manifests itself in bottles of artisanal cachaça on European shelves. Initially sceptical of the selling power of their local produce abroad, a family farm was won over by Rafael’s offer of partnership. From the beginning, it was decided that the cachaça should go from farm to bottle all on one site.

The drink is very much a family product. The tree which adorns the Fubá bottle was chosen because of its obvious symbolic value for a family business. An artist friend from São Tomé and Príncipe Rafael had met while living in Portugal provided the design from his own paintings. They have just two full time employees. “We’re not in this just as a business to make money. We’re in it to show what a family can do. To show what kind of product you can make when you really care about it. We didn’t want to make the most popular, we wanted to make the best. When we started we said we wanted people drinking good cachaça.” 

What sets artisanal cachaça apart from industrial counterparts is that it is made in batches in copper stills rather than being continuously distilled and is flavoured with spices, herbs and cracked corn, known as fubá. Honing in on that smell, Rafael describes the difference the fubá makes, “There is a peppery taste and you can get it on the nose. That is what the fubá adds. The industrial cachaça flavour is a lot less complex.” Rafael is a man keen on standing apart, naming his drink after what makes it different was an easy decision. 

That enthusiasm carries over into the way Fubá is marketed. Rafael does not just stock bars but trains bar staff. “Drinking habits in Ireland are really hard to change, but it’s the bartenders’ job to introduce new flavours, new ideas, new techniques. I am really happy that the times when every single bar would open their doors and instantly make a lot of money are over. It’s a lot better for the customers. The bars are really struggling to make something different, with quality. Something unique, which you have to leave your house and go to that particular bar to have.” Sometimes that requires a little sleight of hand. “Lately I have been trying to remove Mojitos from the menu. The bars will always ask for it and I’m trying to convince them not to, because people won’t stop asking for Mojitos. So your menu has to show what you can do apart from that – what sets you apart from the crowd. Once everyone starts asking for one of those new drinks on the menu, we take it out of the menu and start again.”

DRINKING HABITS IN IRELAND ARE REALLY HARD TO CHANGE, BUT IT’S THE BARTENDERS’ JOB TO INTRODUCE NEW FLAVOURS, NEW IDEAS, NEW TECHNIQUES

He is quick to press that this is not an attempt to force habits on people but to promote creativity that rewards the consumer. “You’re trying not to educate people, but let them know that they can do a lot more if they want to. I’m looking for more creativity in the Irish bartending scene. I have plans to do a cocktail competition very soon.” Contrast, novelty and creativity are at the heart of everything he says and does. 

Cachaça has struggled to emerge from Brazil up until now. Rafael’s explanation lies in the quality and consistency of the drink. He reckons once the standard in distillation improves, the opportunities for export will increase. “Once it starts to become more consistent people will know exactly what they’ll get. It happened to Tequila about twenty years ago.” However, it is Fubá’s difference that sets it apart. A difference that Rafael Agapito hopes might just encourage the breaking of a long standing marriage.

 Fubá is available in most Dublin cocktail bars and many top off licences such as Drinkstore and The Celtic Whiskey Shop.