Who doesn’t like an occasional pina colada or a cuba libre? Well actually I don’t drink cuba libres because coca cola rots both your stomach and your teeth while making you obese. But I love a good mai tai or a mojito. Shots of dark rum are good too especially when you want an instant mental vacation in the tropics which is happens often if you live in a dismal, freezing cold climate like upstate New York with its grey skies and five foot mountains of lake effect snow on a weekly basis every winter. Why not just fly down to the Caribbean for a break, you might ask. Because it’s the 21st century and working on a teacher’s salary makes it nearly impossible, that’s why. And to be honest a bottle of rum is just plain more affordable. You must know all these great cocktails might not even be possible if it weren’t for the Bacardi rum company. It’s not just that the Bacardis made drinkable rum available to the masses, but it’s also true because the family business saved the company’s brand from the Cuban Revolution. They didn’t just fight for the legal right to their own name and product though; the Bacardis also fought for freedom and justice in their homeland of Cuba in political conflicts dating back to the early 19th century. Journalist Tom Gjelten tells the whole story in Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba.
The Bacardi family were Catalans who immigrated to Cuba while it was still a colony under the Spanish crown. They settled in Santiago de Cuba on the southeast coast of the island. Sugarcane farming and the production of granulated sugar were the backbone of the fledgling economy at the time. Industrial sugar production yields a byproduct which we now know as molasses. This byproduct is what is distilled to make rum. This drink was basically swill they made by sugar mills to sell to sailors, unskilled laborers, and other drunks in order to make some extra profits and keep the proletariat too inebriated to think about rising above their station.
Rum production turned a corner when the Bacardi family business entered the liquor market. Under the guidance of Emilio Bacardi, they developed a method of distillation that made rum more palatable to the middle and upper classes. Emilio Bacardi was also an intellectual who wrote poetry and kept extensive historical records of happenings in Santiago de Cuba. Researchers are still referencing his works today. He was also a liberal in the sense of free market economics as it was practiced in the 19th century and a philanthropist with progressive ideas on politics and social issues. The Bacardi family were prominent in using their wealth to build infrastructure in Santiago de Cuba, financing schools, hospitals, and charity funds for the poor. They were deeply involved in Cuba’s Wars of Independence and supported the abolition of slavery on humanitarian grounds.
During the 20th century, Bacardi’s aggressive international marketing and advertising campaigns made them the one brand that people most associated with Cuba aside from some cigar manufacturers like Cohiba and Romeo y Julieta. They also helped promote the image of Havana as a sophisticated hang out in the tropics with first rate nightclubs, opulent hotels, casinos, high end restaurants, and pristine beaches lined with palm trees. Part of their marketing strategy involved pampering tourists by keeping them drunk.
By the time the Cuban Revolution complicated the Bacardis’ privileged position in Cuba, Pepin Bosch was in charge of operations. Being the progressives that they were, the Bacardi corporation supported and funded Fidel Castro as he led his peasant army out of the Sierra Maestra in Oriente Province to seize Havana and conquer the island nation. This decision came back to bite them when Castro and Che Guevara nationalized all the rum factories. Even worse, Guevara, who knew little about economics and even less about rum production, tried to change the company’s method of making rum. Pepin Bosch, along with thousands of other Cubans, fled to Miami, leaving the factory in Santago de Cuba in the hands of a less experienced relative.
Castro failed when he attempted to sell post-Revolution manufactured Bacardi rum internationally due to Pepin Bosch’s shrewd maneuvering around international trademark law. Cuba was allowed to manufacture Bacardi rum, but were unable to sell it outside the country. Castro and company eventually began producing rum under the label of Havana Club which became one of the only sources of export product revenue that Cuba could obtain after the fall of communism. Meanwhile, Bacardi set up shop in Puerto Rico and has been associated with that island ever since. The company has also been involved in American politics and lobbying, guiding the the government’s hands into their deep trouser pockets since the 1970s So if you wonder why the United States have had some odd policies regarding Cuba in the past several decades, be aware that Bacardi Inc. has a lot to do with it.
Tom Gjelten has an obviously favorable view of the Bacardi corporation and the nation of Cuba in general. It is also obvious that he is strongly biased against the Castro regime. With all political opinions aside, this book is valuable in portraying Cuban history and society from multiple levels. He demonstrates that the Bacardis have been so deeply enmeshed in the development and historical events of Cuba that the history of the family and the company is impossible to tell without relating it to the evolution of the country itself. By reading this, you learn the most important parts of Cuban history. By approaching the subject from an angle of business and industry, Gjelten also offers a sharp critique of a nation that got derailed by a political movement that went wrong. You also learn a bit about the Cuban exile community in the U.S. and how they have shaped international relations. Finally you get some insight into how corporate branding can play a role in international perceptions of a sovereign country and whether those perceptions are accurate or not. Gjelten thoroughly vindicates the Bacardi family business, but then again, I haven’t heard of any books written as detractions of them either, so this book stands alone as a unique take on Cuba, business, and economics.
The other benefit of this book is its readability. Gjelten juggles passages about history, business, culture, industry, and biography. You may not be enthusiastic about all the fine details of industrial rum manufacturing, but you can be sure that when those parts of the history come up, he won’t dwell on the subject too long and eventually he will move on to something of more interest to you. In this way, Gjelten creates hooks for a wide ranging audience with varied interests and puts you in the company of details and ideas you might not otherwise pursue out of general interest. This is good for the flexibility of the reader’s mind.
From the start, the history of the Bacardi family business is a typical one like so many stories we hear of immigrants arriving in the New World with virtually nothing who built up a fortune through hard work, brainpower, and dedication. But Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba shows that this story is not always unique to the United States. It also shows how the small empire built on a foundation of enterprise and good intentions can be little more than a sand castle being washed away by the waves of the Caribbean Sea. Pepin Bosch had the foresight to build Bacardi castles all over the world so that when the hurricane came, the family didn’t lose everything. Tom Gjelten also informs you as to why there is a bat on the labels of Bacardi rum bottles. The reason for that is more mundane than you might expect.
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