WEDNESDAY, FEB. 25 2015 >>>

1. If you were drinking a cocktail with the floral notes of a rainforest, the aroma of banana and lime flowers, the earthiness of sweet red peppers and the saltiness of oysters, you'd be drinking cachaca (pronounced ka-SHA-sa), a Brazilian spirit distilled from sugarcane juice. Suffice it to say that, if you enjoy rum, you'll enjoy cachaça. Until recently, the only cachaças available in the States were the industrial style, made in a column still and full of harsh, unrefined flavors. Today, with the upswing in premium-spirits appreciation, high-quality, artisanal cachaça (both aged and unaged) is now easily accessible outside of Brazil, including a new brand of cachaca: Novo Fogo, which translates to "New Fire" in Portuguese. Every week or so, Novo Fogo Cachaça Empresários take over a hot bar somewhere in this country for a few hours of "Brazilian Zen." From 6-9 p.m., Team Novo Fodo - Leroy Thomas and Jim Romdall - visit Hilltop Kitchen to deliver South American alegria in the form of delicious cachaça cocktails and happy times.

2. This week in "Humans and Other Animals," Dr. Erin Colbert-White of the University of Puget Sound will be giving a talk entitled, "Evidence for Language-Like Conversational Strategies by an African Grey Parrot," in which she'll discuss evidence that parrots can pay attention to social contexts and take turnsduring conversations. Check it out at 12:25 in Dougan 201 on the University of Washington Tacoma campus.

3. Several brewer's nights are doing down tonight. Check it.

4. Vince Brown is no stranger to string swing fans in the Northwest. He plays western swing style take-off guitar with Red Brown & the Tune Stranglers; strums guitar and tenor banjo with the gypsy swing band Hot Club Sandwich; he's half of Red and Ruby - a swing duo project with vocalist LaVon Hardison; performs mandolin and tenor banjoist with the old timey outfit Deaf Lester; and the guitarist with the modern jazz/lounge group The Greta Jane Quartet. Brown's nimble fingers have delighted audiences for more than 35 years. Catch his solo jazz guitarist downstairs at Swing Wing Bar & Cafe, the converted bungalow overlooking Capitol Lake in Olympia, from 6-8 p.m.

5. Positive Rising - a Seattle-based reggae band whose members have been rooted in the reggae community for over 10 years - strive to bring a positive message put to catchy hooks and danceable grooves. They have shared the stage with such acts as Natural Vibrations, Easy Star All Stars, Josh Heinrichs & Skillinjah, Kyle & C-Money of Slightly Stoopid, Tomorrows Bad Seeds and Josh Fischel as well as other local acts such as Valley Green, The Approach and Tribal Order just to name a few. Catch them as part of Jazzbones' One Love Wednesday music series at 9 p.m.