The afternoon crowd at Baixela was sipping tiny coffees and digging into plates of liver and okra as I sat down for a leisurely lunch, killing time earlier than heading to the airport. I’d heard the small bar in Copacabana was value visiting amongst Rio de Janeiro’s new-wave botecos: Brazilian institutions akin to dive-y taverns with unfussy drinks and strong meals, which have been, like many such venues the world over, revisited and reinterpreted lately. I scanned the menu, prepared for one final caipirinha for the street—till my eye landed on two Portuguese phrases that I knew individually, however not collectively. Cashew Buddy? I needed to order it. 

Brazil is residence to an abundance of elements which can be comparatively unknown, or simply plain unavailable, in the USA, however few are as quintessential as caju, typically referred to as “cashew apple” in English. It’s what’s often known as an adjunct fruit, a fleshy pink or yellow peduncle that hangs from the towering timber of the cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale), native to Brazil’s northeastern area. The true fruit is a particular claw-shaped drupe on the finish of the apple, which accommodates a seed: the cashew nut. The nut, you in all probability know. The apple is near-impossible to get recent within the States.

In Brazil, although, you’ll see caju in all places. (It’s additionally grown and eaten broadly in different components of Latin America and in South and Southeast Asia.) The flavour is singular: “Whereas it’s candy when ripe, additionally it is fairly astringent and tannic, relying on the maturity of the fruit,” explains Ivo Ribeiro, one of many companions at Tordesilhas, which helped kick-start a brand new give attention to Brazilian gastronomy when it opened in São Paulo in 1990. “It’s utilized in juices, cocktails, to accompany cachaça”—a shot and a slice of caju is a traditional mixture—“and in savory dishes as effectively.” Caju is a typical flavoring for a souped-up caipirinha, and as I discovered at Baixela, it additionally has a cocktail highlight all its personal. However the fruits have a really quick shelf life and don’t ship simply, so this cocktail, the Caju Amigo, is discovered nearly completely in Brazil.

At Baixela, mine arrived in a big glass jar alongside a pair of pasteles de carne and a bowl of tremoços, pickled lupini beans. By way of the juicy yellow, I might see one thing floating murkily. Large slices of pink caju, candied in syrup, gathered on the backside. The flavour was totally new to me: candy, bitter, with a distinctly tropical floral funk and a lightweight pungency that I can solely describe as having notes of asphalt or gasoline, however in a great way. For many Brazilians, the house owners informed me later, the style is considered one of nostalgia.

Although its true origin is usually the topic of debate, the drink grew to become standard within the Nineteen Seventies as a specialty of the now-closed Pandoro, a venerable São Paulo bar, the place it was made with vodka and industrial caju juice and jam. “Caju Amigo is an off-the-cuff, unpretentious, easy cocktail,” says Luciana Chedid, meals and beverage operations supervisor at São Paulo’s Capim Santo, which additionally has a model on the menu. “The title comes from the expression Vê um caju, amigo,” apparently a continuing chorus from Pandoro clients—Carry me a caju, my buddy. 

It’s now acquainted throughout Brazil, with São Paulo nonetheless its most passionate viewers. But it surely’s solely just lately, amid rising curiosity in retro cocktails and the Brazilian classics, that the drink has been broadly reinterpreted in a extra artisanal approach, utilizing recent fruit and housemade juices and compotes. Many bars and eating places have their very own variations, and as of late, you’re extra more likely to see cachaça in a craft Caju Amigo than you might be vodka. At Tordesilhas, for instance, the Caju Amigo is made with high-quality white cachaça, in addition to cashew juice, preserves and syrup, that are all made within the restaurant. 

A Caju Amigo made out of recent caju juice and fruit is a scrumptious factor, but in addition fleeting—typically a particular deal with for spring and summer season. “The important thing ingredient is a seasonal fruit, which means it’s not obtainable year-round,” explains Gabriela Bigarelli, a beverage marketing consultant for São Paulo’s Michelin-starred Maní. After they’re obtainable—solely throughout the harvest season, between September and January, Bigarelli says—the restaurant serves cashew apples in a caju ceviche, reducing the flesh into cubes and eliminating waste through the use of the rest to make a Caju Amigo with cachaça and cashew soda. 

The Caju Amigo can also be making its approach stateside: There’s a model, closely tailored, on the menu at Cana, a Brazilian-inspired bar in Washington, D.C., that opened in fall 2024. Founder Radovan Jankovic had traveled again to Brazil along with his spouse, who grew up there, many instances through the years, and the couple was embedded in D.C.’s Brazilian neighborhood. Cana was born from the commentary that Brazilian cocktail tradition and delicacies had but to interrupt by means of within the metropolis.

The Caju Amigo at Cana is extra of a tribute than a precise reproduction. “As an alternative of relying solely on the caju fruit, we drew inspiration from tiki-style layering and created a cashew orgeat,” made with not solely bottled caju juice but in addition roasted cashew nuts, absent within the conventional drink, explains co-founder Marko Bogdanovic. The syrup is clarified and combined with a mix of two cachaças and a splash of feni, the cashew fruit–primarily based spirit from Goa, India. Nonetheless, the straightforward concept behind the drink is similar as for its cousin in Brazil. Caju has the facility to “naturally raise and improve the flavour of cachaça,” Bogdanovic says, “as in the event that they have been at all times meant to share the identical glass.”