Strawberry Caipirinha
A Strawberry Caipirinha is 60ml of cachaça, half a lime cut into eight segments, three small ripe strawberries and three bar spoons of powdered sugar. The fruit and sugar are muddled in a rocks glass, moved to a highball glass with the cachaça, and the drink is stirred over small or cracked ice. About 2.4 UK units. Difford’s Guide counts at least 19.6 grams of pure alcohol, which agrees. It is our Caipirinha with strawberries added and the lime halved to make room for them. The cachaça, the sugar and the muddling are the same. The glass, the ice and the garnish are not. It drinks fruity and cold, with the grassy edge of the cachaça still in front.
Glassware: Highball Glass
Garnish:
Ingredients
60ml
Unaged, as in our Caipirinha. Difford’s asks for it straight from the freezer. Counted at 40% ABV.
Half
Cut the lime in half from pole to pole, then slice one half into eight half-moons, 3 to 4mm thick.
3 bar spoons
White sugar ground fine. Difford’s allows 15ml of 2:1 sugar syrup instead.
Instructions
Put the cachaça in the freezer ahead of time and chill a highball glass of up to 300ml.
Cut half a lime into eight half-moon segments and drop them into the base of a sturdy rocks glass.
Add three bar spoons of powdered sugar and muddle, pressing and twisting.
Add three hulled strawberries and muddle until the juice is fully out and the sugar has dissolved.
Move the muddled fruit and sugar into the highball glass.
Pour the cachaça into the rocks glass, swirl to rinse it, and pour it into the highball glass.
Stir so everything is well mixed.
Fill the glass with small cubes or cracked ice, stir briefly, and top with more ice.
Garnish with a stirrer and serve without a straw.
Source: Difford's Guide (recipe 4793, measures, method and garnish as printed (60ml unaged cachaça from the freezer, half a lime cut into eight 3 to 4mm segments, 3 bar spoons powdered sugar or 15ml 2:1 syrup, 3 hulled small ripe strawberries; lime and sugar muddled in a rocks glass, strawberries added and muddled, fruit moved to a highball glass, rocks glass rinsed with the cachaça, stirred, small cubes or cracked ice, stirred briefly and topped with ice, stirrer garnish, no straw)). Last checked 1 November 2026.
Expert Tip
Hull the strawberries before they reach the glass. A green top adds a bitter note that no sugar will hide. Rinse the muddling glass with the cachaça. The fruit left on its sides is juice you have already earned. Stir briefly, then top up the ice. Over-stirring waters the drink before it has had a chance to sit.
Behind the Strawberry Caipirinha
Flavour Profile
A Caipirinha with strawberries in it
Difford’s Guide files the Strawberry Caipirinha as a variation of the Caipirinha and sends readers to its Caipirinha page for the history. It prints no creator and no date for the strawberry version, so we give none. The history that we can source, from the Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, is on our Caipirinha page.
Difford’s reviews it as easy drinking, fruity and refreshing, with the distinctive flavour of the cachaça intact. That is the test of a good one. The strawberries should sweeten and colour the drink, not hide the cane spirit under it.
What changes from the Caipirinha
The table below sets the two side by side. The lime is halved because three strawberries bring their own juice and sweetness. The sugar is powdered, which is white sugar ground fine, and Difford’s allows 15ml of 2:1 sugar syrup in its place. Our Caipirinha page explains why crystals are better against lime peel, and the same holds here. Use the syrup when you have no powdered sugar, not by choice.
The Strawberry Caipirinha beside the Caipirinha
Cachaça
- Caipirinha
- 60ml, unaged
- Strawberry Caipirinha
- 60ml, unaged, from the freezer
Lime
- Caipirinha
- One, cut into eight pieces
- Strawberry Caipirinha
- Half, cut into eight segments
Sugar
- Caipirinha
- Four teaspoons of caster sugar
- Strawberry Caipirinha
- Three bar spoons of powdered sugar
Fruit
- Caipirinha
- None
- Strawberry Caipirinha
- Three strawberries, hulled
Ice
- Caipirinha
- Crushed
- Strawberry Caipirinha
- Small cubes or cracked ice
Glass
- Caipirinha
- Rocks glass
- Strawberry Caipirinha
- Highball glass, built in a rocks glass first
Garnish
- Caipirinha
- None; a short straw
- Strawberry Caipirinha
- A stirrer; no straw
| Element | Caipirinha | Strawberry Caipirinha |
|---|---|---|
| Cachaça | 60ml, unaged | 60ml, unaged, from the freezer |
| Lime | One, cut into eight pieces | Half, cut into eight segments |
| Sugar | Four teaspoons of caster sugar | Three bar spoons of powdered sugar |
| Fruit | None | Three strawberries, hulled |
| Ice | Crushed | Small cubes or cracked ice |
| Glass | Rocks glass | Highball glass, built in a rocks glass first |
| Garnish | None; a short straw | A stirrer; no straw |
Muddle in two stages
Lime and sugar go in first and are muddled as for the Caipirinha, pressing and twisting so the peel gives up its oil. Then the strawberries go in and the muddling continues until the juice is fully out and the sugar has dissolved. A muddler with a flat head does it cleanly, and the muddling masterclass covers the pressure and the pith.
Difford’s then moves the muddled fruit into the highball glass, and pours the cachaça into the rocks glass first. A swirl rinses the glass, and the pour carries the last of the fruit across. The cachaça comes from the freezer, which keeps the drink cold from the first sip without more melt.
Ice, stirring and no straw
Fill with small cubes or cracked ice, stir briefly and top up. If your cubes are large, Difford’s asks you to crack four or five of them with an ice tapper and drop the pieces in. It garnishes with a stirrer and no straw, where our Caipirinha takes a short one.
The nearest fruit cousins are the Strawberry Daiquiri and the Strawberry Margarita. The Mojito is the other muddled long drink in this family.
Make it at home
The Spirit
CachaçaCachaça is Brazil's cane spirit, distilled from fermented fresh sugar cane juice instead of molasses, which gives it a grassy, green taste. Brazil’s decree, as quoted in the US rule 78 FR 12591, reserves the name for cane spirit made in Brazil at 38 to 48% ABV with up to six grams of sugar per litre. It is the base of the Caipirinha; our two recipes assume 40%.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Strawberry Caipirinha?
How does it differ from a Caipirinha?
Can I use sugar syrup?
Why keep the cachaça in the freezer?
Which cachaça suits it?
How strong is a Strawberry Caipirinha?
What if my ice cubes are large?
Can I make it ahead for a group?
Sources.
Correct as of 1 November 2026.
- Difford’s Guide, “Strawberry Caipirinha” (recipe 4793: cachaça, lime, powdered sugar, strawberries, two-stage muddle, highball glass, small or cracked ice, stirrer garnish; at least 19.6 grams of pure alcohol; history deferred to its Caipirinha page).
- NHS, “Calculating alcohol units” (the 14-units-a-week guidance and the units calculation).
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Caipirinha
A Caipirinha is 60ml of cachaça poured over one lime cut into eight pieces and muddled firmly with four teaspoons of caster sugar for 20 to 30 seconds, in a rocks glass filled with crushed ice and stirred briefly. About 2.4 UK units. The measures match the IBA’s. The Oxford Companion says non-Brazilians consider it the national drink of Brazil, though in Brazil it is the most famous of a large class of mixed drinks, the batidas. The Companion adds that the drink seems to have been called simply pinga com limão, cachaça with lime, before the 1950s, and that the name caipirinha, from caipira, a southern Brazilian word for a person from the rural hinterlands, was in occasional use by the 1950s and widespread by the end of the 1960s. Cachaça is what makes it. It is made from fresh sugarcane juice, where much rum starts from molasses, and it brings a grassy, green edge that the lime and sugar frame rather than cover.
Strawberry Daiquiri
A Strawberry Daiquiri is 50ml of white rum, five hulled ripe strawberries, 20ml of fresh lime juice and 10ml of sugar syrup, blended with a cupful of crushed ice for 10 to 15 seconds and poured into a hurricane glass, with a strawberry seated on the rim. About 2.0 UK units, all of it from the rum. It is a frozen Daiquiri with fruit in it, and the lime is what keeps it one. The berries bring the colour, the body and the bulk of the sweetness; the syrup is there for fruit that turns out less ripe than it looked in the shop. Difford’s Guide’s frozen Strawberry Daiquiri blends strawberries, rum, lime juice and cane sugar syrup with crushed ice. Made from fruit, it tastes of strawberries and lime rather than sugar, and the whole method is one short blend.
Strawberry Margarita
A Strawberry Margarita is 50ml of blanco tequila, five hulled ripe strawberries, 20ml of fresh lime juice, 10ml of triple sec and 10ml of sugar syrup, blended with a cupful of crushed ice for 10 to 15 seconds and poured into a margarita glass with half the rim salted or sugared and a strawberry on the edge. About 2.4 UK units. It is the Strawberry Daiquiri’s tequila twin: the same fruit, lime and syrup, with blanco tequila in place of rum and half the Margarita’s measure of orange liqueur. The fruit brings colour, body and most of the sugar, which is why the lime runs higher and the triple sec lower than in a shaken Margarita. The syrup is there for berries less ripe than they looked.
Mojito
A Mojito is 45ml of white rum, 20ml of fresh lime juice, two teaspoons of white cane sugar and six sprigs of mint, built in a highball. The mint is pressed gently with the sugar, the glass is filled with cubed ice, the rum and lime go in, and 75 to 100ml of chilled soda water tops it. About 1.8 UK units. Those are the IBA’s measures. The IBA only says to top up with soda, so the 75 to 100ml is ours. Press the mint once or twice and stop. Torn leaves make the drink bitter and grassy, and that, more often than the rum, is why a Mojito disappoints. The sugar grains help: they bruise the surface of the leaf as you press, and the lime then carries the oil through the glass.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 1 November 2026