Cuban Rum

In this blog post we are going to briefly discuss Cuban Rum. We all know Cuban Rum, or Rum that seems to come from Cuba. Cuba is also the birthplace of light Rum. Read on to learn more about it.

The roots

It may seem a bit odd, but to learn more about Cuban Rum we should actually look at non-Cuban brands. The most important brand: Matusalem.

The Matusalem brand brought the Spanish style to life when the Camp brothers moved to Santiago De Cuba and produced smooth Rum using modern production processes and Solera maturation. It didn’t take long to see other players enter the market using the same methods and trying to grab a piece of the Cuban Rum pie: Bacardí and Havana Club are probably the best known, but there were a few others.

The smooth taste of these Rums created a larger sales market, and the proximity to the United States created enormous potential.

The high mass of these Rums came when Prohibition was announced in the United States. Americans quickly found their way to the many Cuban bars and Cuban Rum also found its way to the USA thanks to the many smugglers.

Today, of course, much of that history is faded glory.

Viva la revolución!

The American love affair with rum continued until the Great Depression hit.

A country that is very dependent on another country also shares in the blows when things do not go well, and since many Cuban companies were owned by Americans and they were also responsible for the most important part of tourism, the great depression also plunged Cuba into a dark pit. A pit that became a breeding ground for a Communist ideology.

The Cuban revolution brought an end to capitalism, and that also heralded the end of many Cuban Rum brands. Havana Club, Bacardí, Matusalem... One by one, the families behind these brands sought their fortune abroad. Some more successfully than others, but many of these brands are still present today, albeit in a different location.

Havana Club is a special brand in that area. The Havana Club that we can buy here in Europe is a collaboration between the Cuban government and the Pernod Ricard group. It is an authentic Cuban Rum, and can be recognized by their typical label "Republica De Cuba sello de Garantia".

In the United States, the brand also exists, but is owned by Bacardí, and therefore not real Cuban Rum. The Arechabala family, the original founders of Havana Club, had sold the brand rights to Bacardí.

Pernod Ricard and Bacardí have been involved in legal proceedings over the issue for some time now.

The comeback

Let us end with a look to the future.

Cuban Rum had all but disappeared after the revolution. A few brands continued to produce under government supervision, but apart from Havana Club there was little to report. Certainly not much was available in terms of export. Other brands were able to profit from this for a long time, but that is slowly coming to an end. The Cuban government has understood that their best-known product no longer came from Cuba and wants to change that. They founded Cuba Ron SA, an umbrella organisation that manages the export of Rum from Cuba. They distribute Santiago de Cuba, Caney and Eminente, among others. The preferred trading partner remains France. For example, the barrels in which Cuban Rum matures almost always come from France, and it is companies such as the French Dugas that manage the distribution in Europe. With this new organisation and access to large markets outside the United States, Cuba is trying to bring out quality Rum again and get money in the till. Thanks to the attraction of a lot of foreign and domestic expertise, Cuba is succeeding in its plan. We notice a significant increase in the quality of their Rums in both the taste and the perceived quality due to attractive packaging. Havana Club is also following this trend and is now launching the new "Iconica" in a new, attractive bottle.

So a new generation is emerging in Cuba that, thanks to Rum, is helping to break the country's isolation.

El futuro es brillante...