Paraguayan Caña con Limón with Sugarcane Spirit, Lime, Cane Syrup and Mountain Mint

Chill a tall highball or collins glass in the freezer 10 minutes.

Ingredients

• For one tall cocktail (multiply for a pitcher of 6):
• 60ml (2 oz) Paraguayan caña paraguaya sugarcane spirit (Aristócrata or Fortín) — substitute aged cachaça or unaged rhum agricole
• 30ml (1 oz) freshly squeezed lime juice from 1.5 limes
• 20ml (4 tsp) Paraguayan miel de caña (cane molasses syrup) — substitute equal parts dark muscovado syrup and golden cane syrup
• 8 fresh mountain mint leaves (Paraguayan menta del cerro) — substitute regular spearmint plus 1 tiny pinch dried yerba mate leaf
• 1 long strip of unwaxed lime peel
• Crushed ice and 1 large ice cube
• 60ml (2 oz) chilled sparkling water
• To garnish:
• 1 thin sugarcane stick (or a cinnamon stick)
• 2 fresh mint sprigs
• 1 lime wheel
• Pinch of toasted yerba mate leaf (optional, very Paraguayan)

Instructions

1. Chill a tall highball or collins glass in the freezer 10 minutes.
2. Express the lime peel over a small mixing tin: hold the peel coloured-side down 5cm above the tin and snap it in half — the citrus oil mist is essential, not the peel itself. Drop the snapped peel into the tin.
3. Add the mountain mint leaves and the cane molasses syrup to the tin. Gently muddle for 8 seconds only — just enough to bruise the leaves and release the menthol oil. Do not pulverise, or the mint will turn bitter.
4. Add the lime juice and the caña paraguaya. Fill the tin three-quarters with cracked ice and shake hard 8 seconds — short and cold, so the mint stays bright.
5. Fill the chilled highball glass with crushed ice to the rim, then add one large clear ice cube on top for slow dilution.
6. Double-strain the cocktail through a Hawthorne strainer and a fine mesh sieve into the glass — keep the mint and pulp out for a crystal-clear pour.
7. Top with 60ml chilled sparkling water, stirring once gently with the bar spoon to lift the ice and incorporate the bubbles.
8. Garnish: tuck two fresh mint sprigs into the top of the glass so the leaves stand above the rim, then perch the lime wheel against the side. Add the sugarcane stick as a swizzle and dust the surface with a tiny pinch of toasted yerba mate leaf if you have it.
9. Serve immediately with a long straw — the drink should taste of pure sugarcane, sharp lime, cool mountain mint, and a quiet grassy note from the yerba.
10. Caña paraguaya is Paraguay's national spirit — a distillate of fermented sugarcane juice and molasses that has been produced in the Cordillera region since the 17th-century Jesuit missions, when the Society of Jesus established Paraguay's first commercial sugarcane plantations near present-day Caacupé. Unlike its Brazilian cousin cachaça, caña paraguaya is typically aged 2-5 years in Paraguayan timbó or hardwood casks, giving it a softer, more honeyed character. The drink 'caña con limón' is the everyday Paraguayan apéritif — sipped at every parrillada (grilled-meat lunch), every futbol viewing party, and every San Juan winter festival. The cocktail formula presented here is the canonical Asunción-style serve, brightened with mountain mint and the tiniest whisper of yerba mate — the leaf that defines Paraguayan culture more than any other. Modern Asunción cocktail bars like Bolsi and Lido Bar have refined the drink into the elegant highball above, sometimes finishing with a single drop of Paraguayan wild orange bitters. It is the perfect tropical-evening sipper — fragrant, dry, faintly grassy, and dangerously easy to drink across a long summer afternoon on the banks of the Río Paraguay.