What is the difference between rum and cachaça?

Rum may come from molasses, sugar syrup or sugar cane juice. Cachaça comes exclusively from fermented sugar cane juice. That is where the difference between the two drinks begins.

Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2019/787 defines rum as distilled from the product of alcoholic fermentation of molasses or syrup from cane sugar production, or of the cane juice itself, distilled to less than 96% vol. The Brazilian Decreto 6,871 of 2009 allows only fermented sugar cane juice for cachaça. Molasses is a by-product of the sugar factory; cane juice is freshly pressed.

Cachaça must be between 38 and 48% vol, measured at 20 degrees Celsius. For rum, the European regulation only has a lower limit of 37.5% vol, with no upper limit.

Besides cachaça, the Brazilian decree also defines aguardente de cana, with a wider band of 38 to 54% vol. Cachaça is the narrower standard within it. A sugar cane distillate of 52% vol can therefore be called aguardente de cana in Brazil, but not cachaça.

No. Brazilian law calls cachaça the typical and exclusive name of aguardente de cana produced in Brazil. Sugar cane distillate made elsewhere may not bear that name.

Other countries have adopted that. The American TTB has recognised cachaça since 11 April 2013 as a type of rum and as a distinctive product of Brazil, made according to Brazilian law, with a minimum of 40% vol for the American market.

In the EU, rum may contain up to 20 grams of sugar per litre to round off the flavour. Cachaça may contain 6 grams; with 6 to 30 grams it is called cachaça adoçada.

The European regulation is otherwise strict with rum: no flavouring, no added alcohol, and caramel only to adjust the colour. In Brazil the sugar limit is tighter, but there is a separate designation, compulsory on the label, as soon as more sugar goes in.

Envelhecida means aged. Brazilian law only allows that term when at least fifty per cent of the drink has spent at least a year in wood.

So with cachaça, maturation is regulated on two points at once: the proportion and the time. For rum, the European regulation has no general maturation requirement; rules on wood ageing lie with the countries and the protected designations of origin themselves.

Not as a category of its own. Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2019/787 lists rum as category 1; the name cachaça does not appear in that annex as a separate product category.

For the European market this means: a cachaça is a sugar cane distillate and must fit within what category 1 prescribes. The stricter identity requirements, from cane juice to the band of 38 to 48% vol, come from Brazilian legislation and not from European law.