A spirited legacy

Bacardi is among the best-known brands in the world, but it also has a dramatic history that has been long overlooked. Noli Dinkovski reports

If brand owners and drinks producers think today's conditions are tough, perhaps they should feel lucky not to have started off in 19th-century Cuba. War, cholera outbreaks, trademark disputes and a revolution — Bacardi has seen it all in the last 150 years.

With such a colourful history, it is no surprise that, in an age where heritage and provenance rules, Bacardi has decided it's time to tell all about the road to becoming the world's largest family-owned spirit company.

Launched as a series of events in February, La Legacia de (The Legacy of) Don Facundo Bacardi Massó

gave bar consultants, bar managers and bartenders a rare insight into Bacardi's history, how it is made, and its historic role in cocktail development. Armed with this extra knowledge, it is hoped these "key influencers" will be able to sell the product more confidently and pass on their knowledge to the rest of the trade.

As a further treat, Bacardi master blender José Gomez was on hand to reveal the rum's secrets to the trade's elite. Speaking at the event, he said: "I love my job. It is a mixture of both art and science and La Legacia is the first time I have had the opportunity to share this."

Changing perceptions

When Spanish migrant Don Facundo Bacardi Massó set up a small distillery along with his brother José in Santiago in 1862, Cuba was in the grip of a cholera epidemic. Facundo was determined to shrug aside the hardship of the time by creating a more refined rum — changing the image of a drink that was not considered particularly civilised.

This was achieved by the ground-breaking technique of filtering the rum through charcoal. In addition, the rum was aged in oak barrels, mellowing the flavour and creating the first white rum in the world.

The late 19th century was a turbulent period for the family. Don Facundo's eldest son Emilio was exiled from Cuba after fighting against Spain in the Cuban Independence War. The business was carried on by two of his brothers, and a brother-in-law by the name of Henri Schueg.

By the 1920s' US prohibition era, the third generation of the family was entering the business. The founder's grandson, Facundo Bacardi encouraged Americans to come to Cuba and "bathe in the Bacardi rum", heralding a prosperous period.

A guest speaker at the events, Gorgeous Group director David Paskins, a luxury bar and brand specialist, explained that Bacardi became a drink for all levels of society in Cuba around this time.

"It also became associated with the mojito and daiquiri — part of a new generation of lighter drinks that suited the climate," he said. "Compare this to the crude prohibition cocktails available in the US and it's easy to see why tourists flooded in."

But the ups and downs didn't end there. When a new distillery was set up in Puerto Rico in the 1930s, it created a new headache for Schueg, the company head at the time, who had to battle several trademark disputes to keep the Bacardi name on the bottles produced outside Cuba.

However, this was nothing like the traumas of 1958 and the Cuban revolution. An opponent of communist rule, Schueg's son-in-law, Jose Pepin Bosch, had the foresight to move all the intellectual properties for the business to the Bahamas. Luckier still is the fact that while Castro's army was raiding the head office in Havana, Bacardi's secret yeast formula was being smuggled out of the office in Santiago.

Now exiled in Puerto Rico, the Bacardi family hope to return to Cuba one day. In the meantime, the brand has continued to grow; it is now exported to more than 200 countries and is the world's top-selling rum.

With a "legacy cocktail" initiative due in coming months, Bacardi is clearly proud of its past, but not afraid to look to the future with a new list of classics for licensees to seize on.

How Bacardi is made

Master blender José Gomez says anyone who thinks Bacardi is a mass-produced rum made with the aid of computers is hugely mistaken: "There is no scientific instrument to measure when the rum is ready — it's all up to my palate. It is always a challenge and the product is extremely complex."

l A pioneer of the charcoal-filtration process, the secret formula has been handed down since 1862 and is carefully guarded by the Bacardi master blenders

l Lightly charred American oak barrels are used to age the rum until it meets a required flavour profile for blending

l A "parallel process" distils, ages and filters the rum to produce two varieties — aguardiente and redestilado — before they are blended together to get the balance right