Caipirinha's Journey from Cocktail to Cosmetic

Brazilian businesswomen Veronika Rezzani has seen enough of the world to know that just saying the word caipirinha, can make people smile. The quintessentially Brazilian cocktail comprising cachaça cane liquor, lime, sugar and ice has a surefire ability to conjure up images or memories of dancing the night away in Salvador de Bahia, of fun-filled days on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro or of steamy evenings in the Amazon rainforest.

So, when Rezzani set up a cosmetics company she decided to base her export line not on fruits, fragrances or essential oils, but on cocktails. "I use caipirinhas as a base for moisturizer, shower and bath gel, soap and exfoliating gel," she says with a giggle. "It's the smell of Brazil...It's almost magic."

Its emergence as the unlikely inspiration for an international cosmetics line caps an epic journey for cachaça, which only a few years ago was thought of largely a rough moonshine produced in home-made stills and thrown back at roadside stands and hole-in-the-wall bars for a few cents a pop. Today, it is the toast of glamorous night-spots the world over. "People say that each spirit provokes a reaction — that gin leave people aggressive, that tequila makes them sad and that cachaça makes them happy," ventured João Luis Coutinho de Faria, producer of Magnifica, a cachaça brand he exports to Britain. "I don't know if that's true but it is true that people associate Brazil with sun, music, joy, the tropics."

Here in Brazil, cachaça is the second most popular alcoholic beverage after beer. The poor drink it neat, like firewater, and the rich drink it aged or with every conceivable type of fruit (with lime as a classic caipirinha, or with other fruits as caipifrutas). Around 95% of the 1 billion liters produced here each year is consumed domestically, according to the Brazilian Cachaça Institute (Ibrac). But although exports are still small — Ibrac estimates around 14 million liters went abroad in 2006 — they are growing at 8% a year. And cachaça producers are looking to invest in growing their market share in the industrialized West at the expense of bigger and better-known rivals. "Our big challenge now is to make an impact on the spirits market of vodka, rum, tequila and whisky," said Cesar Rosa, Ibrac's director president. "But we need to invest money overseas because the potential is there."

Rezzani is doing her bit, if not for the actual drink, then at least to promote the brand. Here, at her factory a couple of hours from São Paulo, workers slop between 20 and 25 substances (they won't say exactly how many) into massive tubs that stir them into a caipirinha-colored exfoliant gel. Despite using the name, none of the three key ingredients of a caipirinha — cane liquor, lime and sugar — are mixed into Rezzani's exfoliant. Alcohol, after all, would burn the skin, while lime is too acidic. Rezzani does use sugar-cane extract as a moisturizer and a lime extract to give it that refreshing twang. A perfumier creates a special fragrance to give it a legitmate caipirinha scent.

The end product, which she describes as "fresh lime, lightly sweetened and with a hint of alcohol, without the actual alcohol," is indeed sweet, fresh and undeniably amusing. Just rubbing it on my arm gave me a headache, but it has proven to be a huge hit abroad with those same Brazil lovers who associate South America's largest nation with smiles and irreverence. Just 18 months after launching, she has secured or is negotiating deals with vendors in Denmark, Finland, France, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and the U.K. Like the drink itself, her cosmetics appear to have hit the right note, leaving Rezzani, and doubtless many others, drunk with enthusiasm. "It's been a huge success, when you put it on you smile," she says just hours after returning from a sales trip to France. "That's the objective. If you can't come to Brazil to drink caipirinhas, then rub caipirinhas on yourself and feel great."