Caipirinhas

Caipirinha - Ricardo Bonalume Neto
Vodka Caipirinha - Roberta Lovatelli

Caipirinha - Ricardo Bonalume Neto
Caipirinha is simply white sugar plus Cachaça and lime or lemon on ice. You gotta mash the fruit - a mortar pestle is the usual instrument - together with sugar and ice while you pour the spirit.
For a tall glass, two or three lemons, plus two or three spoonfuls of sugar (or equivalent) will do. Other fruit may apply, like passion fruit.
I prefer the whole thing to pass through a sieve afterwards (in which case people might call it a "batida" - from the verb "bater", to shake, to beat, sort of a spirit-shake). Better yet, I prefer mine with vodka.
Some guys in Brazil sell bottles of cachaça, the country's spirit made of sugar cane, with poisonous snakes inside, normally rattlesnakes. Two guys died a few months ago due to this sort of poisonous eau de vie.

Vodka Caipirinha - Roberta Lovatelli
The way we do it at home, we do not use the yellow lemons, we use limes.
You cut them in the middle and then cut each middle in four. In a glass with a wide bottom -- preferably. Before you add the limes you add two/three spoons of sugar (if you can't do sugar, two little Equal envelopes). You then place a whole lime and crush it, together with the sugar, with a wooden crusher. Once it has all blended together, you add the vodka (or cachaça) and mix together. When well mixed you add crushed ice, mix it. Some people add juices to this "Caipirovska". I tend to like it straight.