UNITED STATES RECOGNIZE CACHACA AS BRAZILIAN PRODUCT

At the same time, Brazil will recognize the Bourbon and Tennessee whiskey as American products
A resolution of the United States Government left Brazilian manufacturers of rum at feast: from April 11, the United States will recognize the rum as "genuinely Brazilian".
The decision, announced by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), the u.s. Government agency responsible for alcohol and tobacco trade, was the result of a request made by the Brazilian Government in 2001.
It was a bilateral agreement: the United States recognize the rum, and Brazil will recognize the Bourbon and Tennessee whiskey as American products. "It was an important decision for the Brazilian industry ", says Vincent Bastos Ribeiro, President of Brazilian Cachaça Institute (Ibrac), an organization that includes about 80% of domestic producers of the drink. "It was an old dream to establish designations of origin to our rum."
All rum sold in the United States will require Brazilian origin recognized and must be produced in accordance with quality standards. The resolution also prohibits that distillates made from corn to use the name "cachaça". "Earlier, the United States demanded that the fair would be sold with the label of ' brazilian rum '. It was a broad definition and gave room for that other drinks, such as ' distilled ' flavorizados, would be sold as cachaça, "says Ribeiro."This threatened to wipe out the identity of our rum. "
The US Government also accepts the spellings "rum" and "cachaca"-which will not allow anyone to use the spelling "cachaca" to confuse the buyer.With the recognition, producers from other regions of the world, such as the Caribbean, for example, can no longer export "cachaça" for the United States.
TREND
The trend is that Brazilian exports to the United States to grow, with the guarantee that the original will be the only product sold in the North American market with the stamp "cachaça". "It is not an immediate process ", says Ribeiro. "Depends on disclosure. Calculation that the consequences will be felt in sales figures in five years. "Brazilian exports of rum are still small. Only 1% of the 1.2 billion gallons produced annually in the country are exported, with a turnover of $ 19.2 million a year.
And only 9% of these exports go to the United States. Today, the US is in fourth place in the ranking of countries that import Brazilian cachaça, behind Germany, Paraguay and Portugal.