I just finished reading Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba by Tom Gjelten. It tells the story of the Bacardi family, whose history is tied not only to Cuba’s rum but to the history of the nation.
When Justin came back from Cuba earlier this summer he brought back a bottle of Cuba’s Havana Club, and right after reading the book, just for the heck of it, we decided to do a “blind taste test” between Havana Club and Bacardi.
Bacardi Gold vs. Cuban-made Havana Club
It was a split decision, but as far as I am concerned Bacardi is the better rum. Read on for some Bacardi history.
The Bacardi family business began in Cuba in 1862, when Don Facundo Bacardi Massó, a Spanish immigrant, chased the bats out of an old shed near the waterfront in Santiago de Cuba and started a small distillery. His wife, Amalia, noted that, in Cuban lore, bats are a sign of good fortune, and with that, Don Facundo set out to change the image of rum in the world.
In addition to the entrepreneurial spirit that saw the struggling distillery through some very tough early years, the Bacardi family’s patriotic spirit is intertwined with Cuba’s search for national identity. In the 19th century, Don Facundo’s oldest son, Emilio, was arrested twice after becoming involved in Cuba’s war of independence from Spain, and he was exiled and imprisoned for four years in Cadiz, Spain, as well as in a penal colony in North Africa.
The Bacardi family earned its patriotic credentials not only during the war of independence but throughout its 100 years of involvement in Cuban nationalistic movements, culminating in its support of Fidel Castro during the Cuban Revolution.
The Bacardis opposed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and supported Fidel Castro, even granting some workers leave to join his rebel forces. Vilma Espín, late wife of Cuban President Raul Castro, was the daughter of a Bacardi accountant, and one Bacardi family member even knitted caps and stockings for Castro rebels fighting Batista’s forces.
The commonplace view of Cuba’s prerevolutionary business establishment is as rampantly corrupt, exploitative and nepotistic, but this reputation is revised in the Bacardi Company history. The Bacardi Company operated in Cuba as a model corporate citizen—efficient, innovative, socially responsible and union-tolerant, so much so that the rebels issued a decree that Bacardi facilities were not to be attacked.
The Bacardi building in Havana is still in good shape, and contains a lot of the original interior decorations.
When Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, there was no Cuban company more associated with the revolution than Bacardi. Jose “Pepin” Bosch, the company’s chief executive, accompanied Castro on his first trip to the United States. But the alliance was short-lived; a year and a half after taking power, Castro appropriated all of the Bacardi properties, and most of the family was exiled.
After nationalizing Bacardi, Cuba eventually began producing Havana Club rum, a brand it usurped from the Arechabala family, Bacardi competitors who did not fight to keep their trademarks after nationalization. Outside the country, Bacardi eventually bought the naming rights to Havana Club from the Arechabalas and began selling its own version of Havana Club (distilled in the Bahamas by Galleon S.A., bottled and distributed by Bacardi Jacksonville) in the United States, touching off legal battles with Cuba that have yet to be fully resolved.
Today Bacardi is the world’s top-selling rum with annual sales of 20 million cases in more than 150 countries. But it does not sell a drop in Cuba.
