Batida de Coco

The batidas — cachaça blended with fruit, juice or coconut, sugar and often condensed milk — are widely held to have emerged in the mid-20th century, around the 1960s, and to have spread in the 1970s as the household blender became common, which is the source of the name. They are tied to the beaches of the Northeast and the coconut-rich coast, where coconut and tropical fruit were ready to hand. The batida de coco became the most popular of them, helped along by commercial bottled coconut liqueurs that carried the flavour worldwide. It is understood as a natural offshoot of the caipirinha, the same base spirit taken in a sweeter, creamier, blended direction.

Pale and opaque in the glass, thick and frothy from the blender, very sweet and full of coconut. Coconut milk gives it body, condensed milk a candied dairy sweetness, and the cachaça sits underneath as a clean alcoholic warmth rather than a sharp bite — the spirit is largely hidden, which is exactly the danger. Served ice-cold it is smooth, almost milkshake-like, a tropical and indulgent drink. Best in small pours; the richness fills quickly and the alcohol is easy to lose track of.

It is a blended drink, made by emulsification: spirit, fatty coconut milk, sugary condensed milk and ice are whipped together in a blender until smooth and aerated. The fat in the coconut milk and the proteins and sugar in the condensed milk bind the alcohol and water into a stable, creamy, opaque emulsion that would otherwise separate, and the blending forces in air for a light, frothy body. Crushing ice into the mix at the same time chills and dilutes it to a slushy, pourable consistency. There is no heat; the texture is built entirely by the blade.