About the Rabo de Galo cocktail
The Rabo de Galo is a darker, richer cachaça cocktail than the Caipirinha, made with cachaça, sweet vermouth, and Cynar, the bittersweet Italian amaro flavored with artichoke. It is smooth, herbal, and spirit-forward, with vermouth rounding the sugarcane spirit and Cynar adding a deep, Fernet-like bitterness without the mint.
The drink’s roots are often traced to Cinzano, which opened a factory in São Paulo in the 1950s and promoted a cachaça-and-vermouth shot to pair local spirit with the company’s vermouth. Over time an amaro, typically Cynar, was added. The name is a literal translation of “cocktail”: rabo de galo means rooster tail.
