Cuba's rum history
Cuba, Prohibition and the 1960 expropriation: Bacardí and Havana Club
Bacardí was founded in Santiago de Cuba in 1862, Havana Club in Cárdenas in 1934. During US Prohibition, Havana became the Americans' bar of choice. After the revolution, Cuba nationalized Bacardí on October 14, 1960, and Havana Club was also expropriated. Since then, two rums have carried this name.
How did Bacardí come to be founded in Santiago de Cuba?
Facundo Bacardí Massó was born in 1813 in Sitges, Catalonia, and emigrated to Cuba. On February 4, 1862, he founded his rum company in Santiago de Cuba, in the eastern part of the island. At the time, Cuba was still a Spanish colony, and here too the sugar economy depended on slave labor until 1886.
Cuban rum developed into the light, elegant style now known as the Spanish style. The planned Cuba geographical indication describes its defining features: only molasses from Cuban cane, a short fermentation of 24 to 26 hours, column distillation and at least two stages of maturation in used white oak barrels. The result is a milder, leaner rum than the heavy spirits from Jamaica.
Prohibition: Why did Havana become the Americans' bar?
From 1920 to 1933, the sale of alcohol was banned in the United States. For Cuba, just about 150 kilometers from Florida, this became a business opportunity. Americans traveled to Havana to drink legally, and bars and hotels thrived on their custom. In 1930, Bacardí opened a company building in Havana in the Art Deco style, which still stands in the cityscape today.
At the same time, the company built footholds outside Cuba. In 1931 it founded a subsidiary in Mexico, and from 1936 a distillery was built in Puerto Rico, which delivered its first rum in early 1937. Puerto Rico was important for the US market because rum from there counted as an American product. Many classic cocktails are dated to these years in Havana, though their origin stories are largely lore.
Shortly after the end of Prohibition, the Arechabala family founded the Havana Club brand in Cárdenas in 1934, explicitly with tourists and the American market in mind.
1960: Revolution and the expropriation of the rum companies
After the revolution's victory in 1959, the new government nationalized banks, sugar mills and industry. On October 14, 1960, it was Bacardí's turn, and that same year Havana Club's owners, the Arechabalas, were also affected. The Bacardí family had taken precautions. Their distillery in Cataño, Puerto Rico, had opened in 1958 and today supplies around 85 percent of Bacardí's rum production. The company is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.
The Cuban state continued operating the expropriated facilities. From 1970, Havana Club was produced at a distillery in Santa Cruz del Norte, and since 2007 a second distillery in San José de las Lajas has made dark rums. However, the US embargo excluded Cuban rum from the American market, and that remains true today.
Why are there two Havana Clubs?
In 1993, the Cuban state enterprise Cuba Ron and the French group Pernod Ricard formed a joint venture. It sells Havana Club from Cuba worldwide, including in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In 1994, Bacardí bought the Arechabala family's rights to the brand and markets its own Havana Club from Puerto Rico in the United States.
At its core, the dispute is about whether the brand lapsed in 1973 and who has owned it since. It has occupied courts and authorities for decades. For buyers outside the US, the situation is simple: here, Havana Club is Cuban rum. Bacardí is today the world's second-largest rum brand by volume, while Havana Club ranks fifth. Cuba has applied for protection of its rum as the Cuba geographical indication in the EU.