Morauer Oak-aged 16 years

The Morauer distillery is of some renown amongst cachaça heads. When I was in Luiz Alves, I had wanted to visit. However, because I was there for such a short period, I managed to miss-time my visit and found the gates closed. A week or so ago, I decided to order a couple of bottles, including this 16-year old, oak-aged cachaça.

This is a very reasonably-priced product for something that has been aged for so long, coming in under fifty reais. To say that I found this to be a bargain would be a massive understatement. Most places that sell such long-aged cachaça sell for at least four times that price, and I would wager that most of them would go five or six, or even seven times higher.

So, needless to say, I was excited to try this product. When I opened the bottle, I found a very subtle smell. This isn’t totally unusual, because many well-aged products need to breathe. In the glass, the appearance of the product is clear, and what I would call a little bit less than amber. Something about its appearance didn’t seem particularly consistent to me, however. It was almost as though the amber concentrated in the middle, while the rest was clear.

The nose continued to be subtle, even after airing. I caught hints of the cane and vanilla, which accompany many oak-aged cachaças. The palate was the same, a bit of cane and a bit of vanilla. What I found mostly, however, was a flavor trying to be distant. There was no comfort in the taste, no gesture of openness. Most spirits aged for this long have very pronounced flavors. This one did not.

I enjoyed this cachaça with two companions, who both liked it very much. They liked that it wasn’t mouth-filling, and they thought it was smooth. And, indeed, it was smooth. But for a cachaça aged 16-years, I found it entirely underwhelming. It wasn’t bad, but not what I expected from a brand with such a history.

I can’t speak to the production process, because I didn’t visit, but I do have some suspicions, which I won’t air here. Suffice to say that while I wouldn’t turn down this cachaça if someone offered it to me, neither would I go seeking it again.