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Alcoholic drinks from Brazilian Amazon

Caiçuma (Amazonian peach-palm, manioc, banana or maize drink)caiçuma

Caiçuma is a thick, cloudy fermented drink that Amazonian indigenous peoples make from starchy food. The best-documented version uses peach palm fruit (pupunha); others use manioc, banana or maize. Natural fermentation leaves it weak, about 1.5 % alcohol in one report, and full of pulp.

Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo fixed household amounts are published. The only amounts are from the INPA laboratory version, which used 1 kg of cooked, pulped fruit with 4 litres of sucrose syrup (Andrade 2003).
Peach palm fruit (pupunha), tops and bases cut offCutting the ends lets fat escape into the cooking water, which is thrown away[andrade2003]
No added yeastThe drink ferments naturally. The INPA laboratory version added dried Saccharomyces cerevisiae (1 %) and sucrose syrup[andrade2003]
Starterspontaneous
Start
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What changes: Peach palm fruit with the ends cut off boils, and the fat is poured off

Step 1 of 4
Cook the peach palm fruit
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Raw peach palm irritates the mouth, so the fruit is only used cooked. Cooking partly breaks down the starch; the base and tip are cut off first so fat leaves with the cooking water. Output: cooked fruit.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Caiçuma is a thick, cloudy fermented drink that Amazonian indigenous peoples make from starchy food. The best-documented version uses peach palm fruit (pupunha); others use manioc, banana or maize. Natural fermentation leaves it weak, about 1.5 % alcohol in one report, and full of pulp. Saccharomyces cerevisiae does most of the fermenting.

What makes this one different

Caiçuma is the Amazonian name for the cloudy, pulp-rich fermented drink of peach palm. Unlike the INPA laboratory version it is not clarified or filtered, so the pulp stays in the cup.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Pano caiçumaMade from manioc, banana or maize by Pano-speaking peoples, including the Puyanawa (pt WP).
  • Clarified peach-palm beverage (INPA)A lab version with added sucrose syrup and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, peach palm cooked 2 h 30 min at about 100 °C, then fermented 7 days at 27 ± 1 °C to 12.1 % (v/v), clear and light orange.

Safety

No safety information specific to caiçuma was found. Raw peach palm fruit irritates the mouth, so it is eaten and used only after cooking (Andrade 2003). Manioc versions carry cassava's cyanide hazard. Boiling does not reliably remove it, and our sources do not say how these makers treat the root.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

An anthropological study describes fermented caiçuma, made by women, as one of the main drivers of social life, prominent at a girls' initiation festival.

  1. [andrade2003] Andrade J.S., Pantoja L., Maeda R.N. 2003, Melhoria do rendimento e do processo de obtenção da bebida alcoólica de pupunha (Bactris gasipaes Kunth), Ciênc. Tecnol. Aliment. 23(Supl):34–38paper
  2. [matos2019] Matos M.A. 2019, Notas sobre a produção feminina da socialidade segundo o ponto de vista de um bebedor de caiçuma, Amazônica, Revista de Antropologia 11(2) (abstract)paper
  3. [s1] Wikipedia (pt), 'Caiçuma' (fetched 2026-10-16; outline only)wiki
  4. [fao1990] FAO 1990, Roots, tubers, plantains and bananas in human nutrition, ch. 7, Toxic substances and antinutritional factors (cassava toxicity)gov