Cachaça community: Stop wasting time and use available technology to your advantage

I’ve recently taken a cachaça sommelier course. The course I took was mediocre. I wouldn’t say it provided me much information I didn’t already know. I found some of the specifics about how cachaça is categorized to be useful, but in terms of tasting, I found it lacking.

Currently, I’m taking the Level 1 Spirits course from the WSET, which is truly great. It’s all done online, it’s got great overviews of spirits production, great readings, and great advice for tasting.

However, I still want to do a cachaça sommelier course. Having seen an advertisement recently for one put out by Cana Brasil, a well-respected purveyor of education and a cachaça producer, I jumped right in. The course is set to take place at the end of July at their location in the state of Minas Gerais.

There’s one problem, however, and that is the COVID-19 crisis. Anyone who is paying attention knows that Brazil’s not handling the crisis well. While there are individual states and locations that might be doing a job, I have decided that I can’t take the risk of travelling at the height of the winter, when the crisis will likely be getting worse.

I asked the proprietors whether they had considered doing the course online. The response was that they had thought about it but that it wouldn’t be available for this particular course.

And therein lies one of my great frustrations with the cachaça community. Cana Brasil marketed the course at the beginning of May, I want to say. At that time, everyone knew what was happening with COVID, and most astute observers knew that as Brazil moved into Winter, the crisis would likely become worse.

I don’t know who authorized the organization to have in-person classes, and frankly, it doesn’t really matter. The question I have is why they didn’t prepare to do distance learning. With two-months preparation, I have few doubts they could have come up with a better solution, with more participants, and pulled off a decent class.

Instead, they’re going to likely have few participants and squander an opportunity to use available technology to expand understanding and expertise around cachaça.

But this isn’t a frustration just with this organization. It’s my frustration with many in the cachaça community. There are outstanding, top quality producers out there. We have the technology to allow cachaça producers and educators to sell directly to consumers online. There is no federal law prohibiting it. And no state laws that I know of. The only complicating factors are the various taxes.

Instead of assuming responsibility and competing with their own products, cachaça producers are allowing online stores to dictate the market, or not even trying to compete online at all. And while I really do appreciate being able to scroll through various different types of cachaça in one place, I can’t help but think that it would be better for consumers and producers if the middle man were removed to improve customer experience.

This market is ripe for direct to consumer sales.

And even though many, if not most cachaça producers have an online presence, it’s generally weak, with little information about where products can be purchased. It would seem to make sense for each producer to have an online store. But that’s not what’s happening.

With COVID running rampant, one would think direct to consumer would be on everyone’s minds. Especially since there are no restrictions or prohibitions, merely a slightly complicated tax system, which an astute person with an online platform could work out rather easily.

I’ve heard many in the cachaça community talk about the importance of marketing. And, it’s true, marketing is important. Cachaça producers who have figured out marketing to even a limited extent have an advantage over those who haven’t. But that still doesn’t mean their products are any good. If a brand is able to find a way to deal with a major online store, even if the product is weak, it doesn’t matter. Thousands of consumers will buy that product, and its reputation will grow, regardless of quality.

With so many competitors, producers cannot rely on web stores, which can be easily swayed with marketing magic, to ensure their products reach the public. While I often find markets to be distorted, I find the cachaça market to be particularly distorted, with an emerging group of gatekeepers giving preference to good marketers. These people mean well, and they want to help cachaça as a whole. But they also shouldn’t be the ones who get to decide what does and doesn’t reach the public, particularly when technological advances should be putting the consumer in the driver’s seat of this market.   

And in terms of Cana Brasil: I forgive them. And if COVID gets better in the next few months, I definitely want to take that class in person. Otherwise, I might have to find an alternative.