Sagatiba Cristalina Cachaca (700 ml)

When Marcos de Moraes launched Sagatiba in 2004, the explicit brief was transgression: build a cachaça that international bartenders would actually reach for, at a time when the category had almost zero export presence. The answer was multi-distillation — a rectification-style approach that strips the grassy, vegetal congeners that define artisanal alambique production and leaves behind clean, buttery sugarcane sweetness with a whisper of spice.

The sugarcane is grown in the farmlands of Minas Gerais, a state whose artisanal pot-still heritage makes Sagatiba's deliberate purity all the more pointed. Base material is 100% fresh-pressed sugarcane juice (Saccharum officinarum) — no molasses, no blending — meaning every character difference between expressions is a function of distillation method and aging alone.

Cristalina is unaged, bottled at the legal minimum 38% ABV, and filtered for clarity. The multi-distillation cycle removes the heavy funk that marks traditional cachaça, producing a spirit whose aromatic register sits closer to a clean agricole rhum than to a Salinas-style pot-still expression.

That rule-breaking is the special feature: Cristalina is technically a GI-protected cachaça listed globally as 'rum' — a US labelling quirk that has propagated into markets like Thailand — making it one of the most miscategorised premium spirits in the on-trade.

As a non-vintage, unaged expression, Cristalina is consistent across batches and drinks best immediately upon opening, with no meaningful cellaring upside.