Brasil 66

A citrusy, orange-infused twist on the Caipirinha — named for the iconic Brazilian jazz band. Cachaça shaken with triple sec, orange juice, lime, and a touch of sweetness.

The Brasil 66 cocktail takes its name from Sérgio Mendes & Brasil '66, the Brazilian musician's vehicle for bringing bossa nova and Brazilian popular music to international commercial success in the mid-1960s. Sérgio Mendes, born in Niterói, Brazil in 1941, had worked with Tom Jobim and João Gilberto in Rio de Janeiro's bossa nova scene before relocating to the United States, where he signed with A&M Records and formed the Brasil '66 ensemble — a group whose instrumentation and two-female-voice frontline gave his recordings a distinctive sound. The debut album Herb Alpert Presents Sérgio Mendes & Brasil '66, released in 1966, included a bossa nova-influenced cover of Scarborough Fair and reached the Billboard Top 40, establishing the group as one of the most commercially successful Latin music acts in American history. The cocktail extends the classic Caipirinha — cachaça, lime, sugar — by adding orange juice and triple sec, the orange element both sweetening the lime's tartness and adding the citrus depth that gives the drink a rounder, more accessible profile. The addition of triple sec specifically connects the drink to the post-Sidecar tradition of orange liqueur as a cocktail modifier, bringing European cocktail sophistication into the Brazilian cachaça framework in a manner analogous to what Sérgio Mendes himself did with Brazilian music — accessible, international, and genuinely rooted in its source culture.