Written by DEVON TREVATHAN Photos provided by NOVO FOGO
I
t’s unusual to find a distillery that centers the concept of terroir in its messaging; even more uncommon is one that is certified carbon negative and committed to removing 36 species of native trees from the threatened list. That is just a couple of highlights in the story that Novo Fogo, a distillery located near the town of Morretes within Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, is trying to tell.
The Novo Fogo brand was started in 2010 by Romanian native Dragos Axinte, whose family moved to and settled in Seattle when he was 18 years old, and his wife Emily Axinte. A previous business venture brought Dragos to Brazil, though he’d already had an emotional connection to the place — as a child, he’d read books about and had become obsessed with Brazilian football stars like
Pelé, and then more broadly the Brazilian football world. As an adult working in the country, however, it was cachaça that drew him in. While the Novo Fogo brand started in 2010, the founders did not immediately have a distillery to work out of. They looked all over Brazil to find one but were firm on having it meet some particular requirements, being zero-waste and USDA-certified among them. Fulgencio Torres Viruel was the founder and president of the distillery that they ultimately acquired in 2015, and he partnered with the Axintes as well as Dr. Agenor Maccari Jr., who specializes in post-harvest food technology, particularly in beverages. Maccari joined the team as the master distiller. Cachaça is the most popular alcoholic beverage from the country of Brazil, whose government defines it as a spirit distilled from fermented sugarcane juice with an alcoholic
NOVO NOVO FOGO FOGO
