Preview: The Long Legacy of Cuban Rum

Posted on July 4, 2009
Filed Under Matt Robold | 1 Comment

Matt Robold is an Orange County, California-based blogger with a passion for rum, an interest he indulges on his blog Rum Dood.

It wouldn’t be Tales of the Cocktail if there weren’t a session or two about rum.  There’s so much history to be read and so many stories to be told and so much variation that you really can’t escape it.  Thoughts drift to Jamaica, Barbados, and certainly to Cuba.

On July 10th at 2:30pm, Tales attendees can head to the Riverview Room at the Hotel Monteleone for what promises to be a lively discussion of a rum icon and its storied and often quite stormy relationship with la isla de Cuba in The Long Legacy of Cuban Rum.

Seminar moderator and good friend of yours truly, Paul Artrip, will co-host the Bacardi-sponsored session about the legacy of rum and Cuba along with Jonathan Pogash and Bacardi’s Chief Historian, Pepin Argamasilla.   The panelists will take attendees step-by-step through the development of rum culture in Cuba and the birth and growth of the world’s preeminent rum brand.   From the founding of the company in 1862 through the Cuban Revolution and their eventual flight from the only home the company had ever known, the panel will discuss the company’s rise and its ability to turn tragedy into success.

The Bacardi formula for producing rum was first developed by patriarch Facundo Bacardi, and the company continues to use that formula today.  The rum made with this formula has played a major role in the creation of some of the most famous rum cocktails of all time.  The first daiquiri and mojito were both made with Bacardi rum.  When American and Cuban soldiers toasted to Cuba’s liberation from Spain, their Cuba Libre’s were made with Bacardi rum.  During America’s Prohibition, Cuba, Bacardi, and rum became synonymous.

While exploring the history of these Cuban-born cocktails, Jonathan Pogash will be mixing them up so that those in attendance can experience them first-hand with the spirit from which they were originally forged.

The panel will also discuss the Cuban Revolution and Bacardi’s role in supporting the establishment of a new regime in Cuba, only to be betrayed by the new leadership when they came to power.  Stripped of all they had worked so hard to attain, the family and company fled Cuba to re-establish themselves in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the United States.

Pepin will discuss how what was at the time an incredible tragedy that could very well have wiped Bacardi off of the map eventually made the company stronger.  No longer able to “settle” for being Cuba’s rum, Bacardi set off on a path of growth and development that eventually led to it no longer being synonymous with Cuban rum, but rum the world-over.

In the end, people attending this session will be able to walk away with a great deal of information on one of the largest spirit brands in the world.  They will know the history of some of the most iconic and best-loved cocktails made with rum, and they will have the full story of company that built itself to define a national spirit, and when cast out of that nation, managed to rise to the highest levels of notoriety for the spirit itself.