Rum Historian by Marco Pierini
HISTORY of CUBAN RUM
15. The New Cuban Rum Industry
In this article I will try to tell you briefly about four decisive decades in the history of Cuban rum, 1862-1902, that is, from the beginning of Bacardi to the proclamation of the new, independent Cuban Republic. With a warning: in this and often also in the next articles, Bacardi will take the lion’s share. I think it’s inevitable, for two reasons. The first is the objective importance of Bacardi in the history of rum, the second is the (relative) abundance of sources on Bacardi, compared to their scarcity on other brands. That said, let’s start, and as we have often done, let’s start from sugar.
In the same decades, the decline of Cuban sugar production, which we have discussed in the article THE QUEST FOR QUALITY in the April 2023 issue, continued. From roughly the 1880s, Cuba no longer produced the expensive white sugar already suitable for consumption, nor did it export it to several countries any more. Now Cuban planters produced mostly raw, cheap muscovado and exported it almost exclusively to the United States, where the American sugar refineries transformed it into ready-to-eat sugar.
The process of concentration continued too, and new, large factories were born, often the property of foreigners, which at the beginning were called ingenio central (more or less, central mill) and from the end of the century, simply, central.
As sugar production increased in quantity, but lost in value, the rum industry followed the opposite path. Between 1862 and 1902, Cuban rum experienced a spectacular growth. Not so much in quantity, because the wars of independence devastated many sugar plantations and rum distilleries. The great growth was in quality and value. In those decades, many brands were born and consolidated, some destined to remain famous for a long time, some until today. In markets all over the world Cuban rum achieved a reputation that it has not lost since then. And these new companies were owned by Cuban entrepreneurs.
It is worth remembering that in the past rum was sold in bulk, and then consumed in taverns, or buyers brought their vessels from home. I have not done any studies about it and, as far as I know, none exists, but probably the first to sell bottled rum, with a brand, were British merchants, more or less at the beginning of the 1800s. “Rum merchants were now establishing themselves across Britain. Using their names as guarantees of quality, they blended marks from one or more countries. London had Lemon Hart’s eponymous brand; White, Keeling had Red Heart; and Alfred Lamb has his Navy Rum. Liverpool had Sandbach Parker & Co., Hall & Bramley and many more, while Dundee merchant George Morton’s Old Vatted Demerara (O.V.D.) and Old Vatted Jamaican Rum brands appeared in the 1830s and 1840s. Blending gave volume; it also provided consistency and complexity. The majority of these rum blends predate blended Scotch by 30 years.” (Dave Broom “Rum. The Manual” 2016)
British merchants bought the different rums in bulk from the distilleries, blended them and sold them in bottles, under their own brand name, thus keeping most of the value. For centuries, well into the 1900s, this was the dominant trend in the West Indies rum market. In Cuba, on the other hand, the producers themselves bottled their rum and put it on the market with their own brand, thus retaining most of the value.
“The Cuban rum invasion skipped its pre-industrial stage and began to adopt bottling in bottles made in series … Creole entrepreneurs, looking ahead, backed with their surnames brands that came out to compete with Spanish brandy and French cognac. T In Cienfuegos, from the distilleries ‘San Lino’, a product came out that reached the exclusive tables of the ‘Moulin Rouge’, where it was tasted by the painter of can-can, Toulouse Lautrec. The quality of the sociable drink ... won the salons of Europe.” (Fernando Campoamor “El hijo alegre de la caña de azúcar. Biografía del ron cubano”1981)
Many new brands appeared. “New variations were born: dry, straw-coloured Carta Blanca; golden-hued Carta Oro; amber, sweet, and aromatic Ron Palmas; rich, dark Añejo. As these styles developed, between 1860 and 1890, so did the number of Cuban rum brands. Bacardí y Boutellier made Ron Refino de consumo corriente (1862): Campos Hermanos introduced Ron Matusalem (1872). Bacardí y Cia SC and Dussaq y Cia produced Ron Carta Blanca y Ron Palmitas (1873). Fandiño Pérez launched Ron Superior (1878). José Bueno y Cia created Ron Blanco y de Color (1876). José Arechabala Aldama launched Ron Viejo Superior (1878). Canals y Cia made Ron Vieho Superior (1880). Rovira y Guillaume crafted Ron Añejo (1880). Crossi Mestre y Cia distilled Ron Crossi y Mestre (1885). JM Parejo introduced Ron Carta Parejo (1887). Trueba Hermanos launched Ron Tres Negritas (1888). R. Domenech made Ron Superior (1888). Rovira y Guillaume distilled Ron Añejo Vencedor (1888). And Nicholás Merino distilled Rum Casa Merino (1889).” (Jared Brown, Anistasia Miller “Spirit of the Cane. The Story of Cuban Rum” 2017). An explosion of entrepreneurial creativity with few, if any, comparisons in Latin America.
Among the many brands born in those decades, one in particular would have great success, Arechabala. In 1878, Basque immigrant José Arechabala Aldama began sugar and rum production in the new, vibrant town of Cárdenas. It seems that in the first years the fundamental product was sugar, not rum. But later, in the 1900s, with the surge of tourism in Cuba and with Prohibition, things changed and Arechabala rum became very famous, giving rise to a kind of diarchy with Bacardi that would dominate the Cuban rum market. From the very beginning, Bacardi understood the importance of marketing. “Facundo Bacardi featured a different rum style. In 1873 his company introduced a new product, Ron Superior Extra Seco (Superior Extra Dry Rum), the lightest and whitest rum ever sold in Cuba. In 1876 the Bacardis sent a sample of Extra Seco to the Centennial International Exposition in Philadelphia, the first major world fair to be held in the United States. Competing against three other Cuban distilleries, as well as several North America and Caribbean rums, Don Facundo’s Extra Seco took the top prize in its class. A year later the same label won a gold medal at the Exposición Universal in Madrid” (Tom Gjelten “Bacardi and the long fight for Cuba” 2008).
Moreover, for years the company actually claimed that drinking Bacardi rum was good for one’s health and fortune favored them, too. “The pitch got its start in 1892, when the physician to the royal court in Madrid prescribed Bacardi rum for the boy King Alfonso XIII, who was so sickened with a high fever that his life was thought to be in danger. The doctor decided an alcoholic stimulant might help him, and from the royal liquor storehouse he selected a botte of Bacardi rum. Accordng to company lore, the boy took a drink and promptly went to sleep, and when he awoke his fever was gone. The physician wrote the Bacardi a note, thanking them ‘for making a product that has saved His Majesty’s life.’ Needless to say, the royal letter was featured often in Bacardi publicity from then on.” (Gjelten)In 1874, in the middle of the war, Bacardi co-founder Josè Leon Boutellier retired and the firm took the name of Bacardi & Compañía, with which it would become famous. Boutellier disappeared from the history of the firm and he would never be mentioned again in the abundant literature that the firm itself would produce all over its existence.
The Second War of Independence, 1895-1896, was particularly hard and Cuban rebels burned many of the plantations and distilleries of the island, in a devastating kind of warfare called “La Tea”, that is, The Torch. “Several of the Bacardis’ Cuban competitors, in fact, were already closed. Some distilleries were attached to sugar plantations and burned along with other plantation buildings; some distillery owners were targeted as ‘enemies’ of the revolution; some got in trouble with the Spanish. One of the most successful rum producers in Eastern Cuba, Brugal, Sobrino & Compañía, moved operations out of Cuba in the midst of the war and never came back.” (Gjelten) Brugal went to the Dominican Republic, where it is still located. In this difficult and dangerous situation, Bacardi was able to save itself and remain active during the whole war thanks to the political and managerial skills of its leadership, and although rum production decreased greatly, it never ceased.
The long struggle of the Cubans for independence ended with the Hispano-American War and the American military occupation (see the article TOWARDS INDEPENDENCE: SUGAR, WARS AND THE U.S., in the August 2023 issue). As we have seen in previous articles, the Americans’ interest in Cuba is ancient, actually it is older than the United States itself (see the article THE KEY TO THE INDIES in the September 2022‘s issue). But now, owing to the great press campaigns during the War of Independence, the American military intervention and then the occupation of the island, the interest of the Americans for Cuba exploded and a wave of visitors poured onto the Island: soldiers, merchants, businessmen, tourists, adventurers and, of course, journalists. These visitors discovered Cuban rum and got used to drinking it and made it known in the United States. Here is an example: “In 1899, a reporter for a New England newspaper concluded that Santiago region’s charms were not overly impressive. (‘The country houses around Santiago are infested with mice and lizards.’) But he did commend a restaurant where he was served ‘a native rum, called Bacardi [sic], which is made from molasses, and which, well mixed with water and cooled with ice, makes a very smooth sort of beverage and a somewhat insidious one. A quart bottle of this rum costs only fifty cents, and as a good deal of it is usually drunk at the midday meal it is not to be wondered at that a nap immediately follows it.’” (Wayne Curtis “And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails”2006)
After the end of the war, “Sensing the moment had come for a big marketing push, the Bacardi partners promoted their product wherever they could, both at home and abroad. Enrique Schueg sent Bacardi rum samples to every international exhibition or fair: Paris 1900, Buffalo 1901, Charleston 1902, St. Luis 1904. For the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, Schueg had an elaborate Pavilion built, featuring fourteen-foot columns of mahogany and other exotic Cuban woods. The centerpiece was a huge replica of a Bacardi rum bottle, complete with a painted label and crowned by a bat, the symbol of the firm, along with a bundle of sugarcane. It might have been ugly, but it made a statement: the Bacardis had arrived. Their rum beat out eleven Cuban competitors in Buffalo to win a god medal. At the St. Luis World’s Fair, the Bacardis won a gran prize.” (Gjelten).
The road was open for another spectacular growth of Bacardi, which in the following decades would become a large multinational enterprise, as we will see in the next articles.
POST SCRIPTUM
A more personal note. At the end of the beautiful book which I have often quoted, “El hijo alegre de la caña de azúcar. Biografía del ron cubano”, Fernando Campoamor devotes an entire chapter to a sort of Dictionary of Cuban Rum. In it, among many other entries, there is one that struck me: PATICRUSAO (more or less, cross-legged). Here it is:
“Paticrusao. To compete with the Jamaican rums, the first industrial-scale Cuban distillery - of the Portuondo family, in Santiago de Cuba - launched The little seamen (Los marineros) on the market. On their label, two small sailors sitting on the side of a sailing boat with legs crossed gave rise to the popular titles of ‘The cross-legged little sailors’, ‘The cross-legged’ or, more simply: ‘Pour me a ‘A cross-legged’! A request that sometimes Eastern Cubans expressed by riding the middle finger on the index.”
In all my readings on Cuba and its rum, I have found no other trace of this distillery, which, according to Campoamor, was the first to reach an industrial scale. Yet, Campoamor was a great connoisseur of Cuban rum, its history and its folklore. Anyway, it struck me and filled me with nostalgia. Yes, nostalgia, because when, many years ago, I began my journey in the world of rum, among the first quality bottles that I bought and drank with pleasure, there were just same bottles of Paticruzado. And I still keep some jealously. Now, at least in my country, Italy, unfortunately it has practically disappeared from the market. In fact, I am not sure, but I fear that in Cuba they don’t produce it anymore. Pity.
- Marco Pierini -
