the rum wars - neverending...

[Ken Gargett]

this is from a rumlab site piece. thought it would be interesting.

and ray, if you can turn a thread about girl guides selling cookies into a debate on the philosphical differences of the world, then you should be right at home here!

THE RUM WAR

Rome Hartman - 02/04/2018 - CBS News 
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-menu-chobani-yogurt-rum-cuba-shake-shack/

The relationship between Cuba and the United States was stuck in pretty much the same bad place for half a century. But things have been changing at a dizzying pace in the last couple of years.

President Obama started the thaw in the relationship by re-establishing economic ties and easing restrictions on travel. Now President Trump has announced plans to undo many of those moves. And Fidel Castro, who spent 50 years poking his thumb in the eye of every American president, has died.

Whatever happens, there's already a war underway that has the U.S. and Cuba on the rocks. As we first reported last year, it's a war over rum, specifically, over two different versions of Havana Club rum and it's as bitter as the Cold War ever was.

It's a Tuesday afternoon at El Floridita in Old Havana, and we and lots of other visitors to Cuba are filing in and filling up at the bar that calls itself the "Cradle of the Daiquiri." Head bartender Alejandro Bolívar needs to double up on rum bottles just to keep up with demand.

Sharyn Alfonsi: How many bottles do you go through a day? Any idea?

Alejandro Bolívar: So it's at-- it's between 60 and 80-- 80 bottles per day.

Sharyn Alfonsi: That's a lotta daiquiris.

Alejandro Bolívar: Yeah. Plenty of empty bottles.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Oh my gosh. Is this just from today?

Alejandro Bolívar: Yeah. Today, yeah.

All those bottles were filled with Havana Club rum, produced by a 50-50 joint venture between the Cuban government and the French beverage giant Pernod Ricard, which sent Jérôme Cottin-Bizonne to Cuba to run the business. We met him in a place that's rarely open to outsiders: a warehouse stacked to the ceiling with oak barrels full of rum.

Jérôme Cottin-Bizonne: We built a very great success with Havana Club. When we started the partnership in 1993 we sold five million bottles a year. Today, we sell 50 million bottles a year.

50 million bottles, 11 million of them sold here in Cuba. The tourists drinking Havana Club are obvious, but we went looking down the side streets, and found locals drinking it too…at domino games and dance halls and discos…and sipping it along Havana's seafront promenade, the Malecón.

To distill and age all that rum, the Cuban government and Pernod Ricard rely on Asbel Morales, Havana Club's master rum-maker. He loves talking about rum, but he says to really understand it, you have to drink it.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Es muy bueno.

Asbel Morales: Muy Bueno.

"The first sip will impact you the most," he said, "and make you anxious for a second."

Sharyn Alfonsi: I am anxious to continue the second sip.

And the third, and the fourth, and the Cohiba cigar that he says pairs perfectly with this Havana Club. As we drank and smoked, Morales told me "Cubans are born with a "rum gene."

And to be real Havana Club rum, he said, it must be made from Cuban sugarcane and aged in the hot and sticky Cuban climate.

Here's where it gets confusing: this is another bottle of Havana Club rum. Exact same name – but you can see right here this one is made in Puerto Rico.  And it's made by Bacardi.

Sharyn Alfonsi: How in the world can you say Havana Club when you're making it in Puerto Rico?

Rick Wilson: I-- just the way that you say I'm calling it Arizona Iced Tea and I'm not making it in Arizona.

 

Rick Wilson is an executive at Bacardi, originally a Cuban company, and now the largest privately held liquor business in the world.

Rick Wilson: The true Havana Club made with the recipe of the original founders is the Havana Club that Bacardi is making and selling here in the United States.

Bacardi bought that original recipe from the family of this woman, Amparo Arachabala.

Sharyn Alfonsi: And it was one of the wealthiest families in Cuba before the revolution?

Amparo Arachabala: Yes. Definitely. Definitely.

The Arechabala fortune was built on sugar, and shipping, and rum…Havana Club Rum. Like hundreds of other Cuban companies, theirs was confiscated shortly after Fidel Castro's revolution in 1959.

Amparo Arechabala: They took over the company on December 31st, 1959.

Sharyn Alfonsi: And do you remember that day?

Amparo Arechabala: I remember that day vividly. My husband came home. He went to work early and then he came home and he says, "They've thrown us out. It's over."

Sharyn Alfonsi: It's over, he said.

Amparo Arechabala: He said, "It's over."

All of their assets gone, Amparo and her husband Ramon were ordered to leave Cuba with only the clothes on their backs.

Sharyn Alfonsi: And how much money did you have in your pockets?

Amparo Arechabala: Absolutely nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Sharyn Alfonsi: What was it like when you got on the plane?

Amparo Arechabala: Everybody in the entire plane was crying. And I remember I looked out the window as we were taking off and I say to my husband, "Take a good look because you're not gonna see it again."

In Cuba, the Arechabalas and Bacardi had been competitors, each making and selling popular brands of rum. But when the revolution came, Rick Wilson says Bacardi had an advantage.

Rick Wilson: Bacardi, unlike most other Cuban families and companies, had assets outside of Cuba.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Is that the reason they were able to survive?

Rick Wilson: Yes. Because we could continue to produce and sell our product. Unlike the Arechabalas. The Arechabalas, everything they had was in Cuba. Everything.

Everything except the recipe for Havana Club rum. The Arechabalas eventually sold it to their old rival Bacardi, which makes this version at its distillery in Puerto Rico.

They did it to compete with this version made by the Cuban government and their partner Pernod Ricard. That set off the longest bar fight ever.

It has been fought both in the courts, where the latest lawsuit is pending, and the marketplace, between two of the world's largest liquor companies. Pernod Ricard produces Absolut vodka, Chivas Regal scotch, Beefeater gin. Bacardi makes Grey Goose Vodka, Dewar's Scotch, And Bombay Sapphire Gin. 

And now they both make Havana Club rum, and they both try to claim the moral high ground.

Sharyn Alfonsi: And it wasn't that Pernod Ricard had just stepped up and they looked to be competitors to you.

Rick Wilson: No. We don't mind competition from Pernod Ricard or anyone else. Pernod Ricard, though, did and is partnering with the Cuban government who has confiscated the assets of a family. No compensation paid.

Sharyn Alfonsi: It's hard to believe that a company like Bacardi is just making a moral argument. That it's just about…

Rick Wilson: We're-- we're not. We're makin' a moral and a legal argument.

Sharyn Alfonsi: OK. And the legal argument is?

Rick Wilson: Um, theft. I mean it comes down -- it's stolen property. That's what it comes down to.

Sharyn Alfonsi: The Bacardi family will say that this Havana Club is stolen property.

Jérôme Cottin-Bizonne: Well, you see the place. We are here in our distillery. It was built in 2007.

Sharyn Alfonsi: And none of these facilities were used—before the revolution?

Jérôme Cottin-Bizonne: None of these facilities were used before the revolution, no.

And Asbel Morales dismisses the argument that the Havana Club rum he produces for Pernod Ricard in Cuba is not the real thing because it's not made from the original Arechabala family recipe.

"The recipe remains in this land," he said. "It is here in this climate, the culture."

Jérôme Cottin-Bizonne: It's very simple. To make a Cuban rum, you need to make it in Cuba. You know, it doesn't-- take more than that. You cannot make Cuban rum in Puerto Rico.

And the Arechabalas cannot, he insists, claim to own the Havana Club brand decades after abandoning it.

Sharyn Alfonsi: How do you feel that they used that word about the family, saying they abandoned the brand?

Amparo Arechabala: They can say whatever they want. They can say that we abandoned. We didn't abandon anything. They threw us out.

The Castro government did that. The French company Pernod Recard came along much later, and turned the Cuban Havana Club into a global brand and an icon of Cuban culture. We found the logo everywhere we went in Cuba: on every glass in every bar…on taxi drivers and parking attendants…on the chairs we did our interviews in…and at the tourist market, on artwork and tote bags and T-shirts, right alongside other symbols of Cuba.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Do you sell more Che T-shirts or more Havana Club T-shirts?

Man: Same.

Sharyn Alfonsi: About the same

Jérôme Cottin-Bizonne: When we sell a bottle of Havana Club in France, in England, or in Chile, we not only sell the liquid, we sell the soul of the country.

The one place in the world they can't sell their Havana Club at the moment is the United States, because of the trade embargo on Cuban products that's been in place since 1962.

But there is a way for Americans to have the Cuban version; in 2016, then-President Obama lifted limits on how much rum and cigars tourists can bring home from Cuba.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Will you be bringing rum home with you?

Woman: Yes. Lots of rum. We stocked up. Now we just need another case to bring it back in.

The makers of Cuban Havana Club aren't satisfied with just sending suitcases full of rum home with tourists. They want to ship containers full when the trade embargo is lifted.

Jérôme Cottin-Bizonne: In Cuba-- we know how to be patient. Look, all the rum sitting around us, all these barrels. It's years and years of aging. Years and year of work, of—dedication. We know that one day, we'll be able to sell our rum, Havana Club, the true Cuban rum made in Cuba, and that the U.S. consumer will have the chance-- the opportunity to enjoy it.

Consumers in the U.S. drink 40 percent of the world's rum, which explains why they're stacking barrels sky-high in Cuba in preparation.

Sharyn Alfonsi: This is all ready to go?

Jérôme Cottin-Bizonne: This is all ready to go.

For now, though, the trade embargo continues, and so does the court fight over who has the right to use the Havana Club name. On the streets of Havana, there's no disagreement on that point. We took a few bottles of Bacardi's version there to sample reaction.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Do you drink rum?

Players: Si!

Sharyn Alfonsi: Have you ever seen this before?

These men we found playing dominos on an old Havana side street were more than happy to try it…

Man: Similar.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Similar.

"It's good," he said, "but the Cuban is better quality."

Ernesto Iznaga: Color is different, the stamp is different. This is the real Havana Club. The symbol.

In a bar called Sloppy Joe's, manager Ernesto Iznaga wanted no part of Bacardi's Havana Club.

Sharyn Alfonsi: You don't even wanna try it.

Ernesto Iznaga: No.

Sharyn Alfonsi: You can just have a sip. You don't have to drink the whole bottle.

Ernesto Iznaga: No.

Sharyn Alfonsi: No?

Ernesto Iznaga: Sorry.

These are the front lines: two bottling lines in two countries. Each one producing Havana Club rum. Each claiming that its version is the only real and authentic one. Not so far apart in miles, but worlds apart in the rum war.

[Habana Mike]

I've had both. Prefer the Cuban version though would be interesting to have a blind tasting contest of the two.

[FreedomMN]

Very interesting. I need to get my hands on the Cuban version.  

[MooseAMuffin]

Interesting fight. I have seen the Barcadi version here in the US. 

I am with @Habana Mike, a blind taste test would be fun.

[Martin_F]

I've said it in a previous thread, the comparison is useless. Just a marketing gimmick.

The version from Puerto Rico is nowhere close to 7 years old. So how could it compete with the 7 year old from Cuba?

Only reason Bacardi make this Havana Club is so they can hold on to the brand name for the US market. That's it.

[Ryan]

I was in Florida two years ago, around Orlando, Clearwater, Naples and tried to find the Bacardi version of Havana Club, to do a taste test back here with it and the Cuban version. No sign at all of the aged stuff. One liquor store I found in Orlando had one bottle of the unaged clear stuff but I didn't bother buying it with the hassle of getting it home.

For a rum that's supposed to be available around Florida I couldn't find any of the aged stuff, very few liquor store employees had even heard of it. This was in 2015.

[Martin_F]

1 hour ago, Ryan said:

I was in Florida two years ago, around Orlando, Clearwater, Naples and tried to find the Bacardi version of Havana Club, to do a taste test back here with it and the Cuban version. No sign at all of the aged stuff. One liquor store I found in Orlando had one bottle of the unaged clear stuff but I didn't bother buying it with the hassle of getting it home.

For a rum that's supposed to be available around Florida I couldn't find any of the aged stuff, very few liquor store employees had even heard of it. This was in 2015.

It made it all the way up here to Virginia now.

But for the price it''s not worth picking it up. Even the 3 year aged one.

[CanuckSARTech]

When the Mrs and I took the kiddies down to Disney in Florida back in Feb/Mar of last year (2017), I saw some of it then / there.  

For reference, I'm a HC 7 whore.  That's actually my go-to bottle for making strong Cubatas / Cuba libres at home.  Three or 4 ounces / shots of the HC 7 into a tall glass with lots of ice, and half a can of Coke Classic.  Hard to beat.  Regularly go through bottles of HC7.  That said, I'm a fan of Bacardi white for it's simplistic smoothness, and like it best for using with blended rum drinks (pina coladas, daiquiris, rum punch, etc.), which are also a regular in our household, especially during the back-yard weather in spring/summer/fall.  My wife and I are both rum fans.

I honestly didn't like the taste of it.  Seemed too chemically-tinged, for me.  Definitely not that HC is the smoothest / sipping rum out there to begin with (I like Ron Santiago for sipping more - and it's actually the original pre-revolution Bacardi as well, ironically enough).  But this Bacardi HC version isn't as nice.

Not that the flavor profile should really be a factor though.  Also, ironically enough.

Me myself, I'm torn.  I understand what the original ownership family is stating, and the theft that the Castro revolution perpetuated on many Cubans in '59.  But I agree that the best Havana Club rum is made in Cuba with Cuban sugar cane and water, etc.  And I also agree that Bacardi is just a shill, trying to milk the potential for a U.S. gov't opening up - if they were that worried about the Arechabalas family, they would have fought tooth and nail for them back in the 90's when Havana Club was sold to Pernod and started it's renaissance, not waited until now with the market opening up, just so they can increase their own bottom line.  Frankly, there's enough crap Puerto Rican rum on the market.  For the price, Bacardi is definitely trying to milk things with this recent resurgence. 

I would love to see a "best steps forward" approach - Bacardi and Pernod both joining forces to get the market open in the U.S., they drop all their lawsuit B.S., they agree that the Cuban-produced HC from Pernod is the "one rum" to carry the namesake, they split open the U.S. market with an even and/or proportional split on the revenues / profits, and the Arechabalas family is given a royalty-percentage or one-time licensing-payment to agree to it all, with HC acknowledging their place in history.

[Fugu]

10 hours ago, Martin_F said:

Only reason Bacardi make this Havana Club is so they can hold on to the brand name for the US market. That's it.

This ^^. Competing for the brand - sure, but certainly no competitor in terms of the actual product. As if Red-Dot Cohiba would quest competition with Cohiba....

Let's face it, the Bacardi (Puerto Rican) version still is and from the beginning was just a move to keep their trademark up and running in the US (and keep in mind Bacardi's "engagement" in the Helms-Burton Act...). How many do they do atm - a few thousand cases...? The "recipe" claim is nothing more than an advertising tactic. What they bought from the Arechabalas was the presumed right to utilize on the brand "name" (trademark- and property rights being subject of those ongoing lawsuits) and thus capitalizing on the Cuban heritage. What's worth a recipe if you can't get hold of the necessary ingredients for blending?

It's sort of ridiculous - all legal aspects and aspects of morality aside (and I tend to side with the Arechabalas) - if talking about authenticity - the "authentic" Cuban version can only be the one made in Cuba. Questions of compensation to the Arechabala family notwithstanding.

[Ken Gargett]

53 minutes ago, Fugu said:

It's sort of ridiculous - all legal aspects and aspects of morality aside (and I tend to side with the Arechabalas) - if talking about authenticity - the "authentic" Cuban version can only be the one made in Cuba. Questions of compensation to the Arechabala family notwithstanding.

i suspect plenty of blame to go around for all parties. but i was always of the understanding that most of the family had fled before the takeover. writing on the wall, perhaps, but they got out with everything they could, including recipes etc. now, it reads better for them to have been thrown out. but now, hardly matters.

[Ryan]

Just on Havana Club 7. The Cuban one.

I'm not a big fan, and I like Cuban rums.

I think I'm the only person but I get a lot of Acetone (nail polish remover) on the nose. It could even be an odd allergy I have to something because I've never heard anyone else say the same.

For Havana Club sipping rums I actually prefer the Anejo Especial, rough and all as it is.

As for other Cuban rums I'd prefer over Havana Club 7.

Arecha 9 year old, coffee and vanilla on the nose.

Santero 11 year old

Cubay 10 year old

Santiago Anejo, 11 and 12

Mulata 15 year old

Caney Anejo Centuria, to me the best rum/price ratio in the world at $7.60 a bottle when it can be found in Cuba.

Caney 12 year old. I've never had a better rum. If anyone finds it in Havana at less than $75 a bottle please let me know. And at that price I''ll be buying a few bottles. I've never found it outside Cuba.

There's a mini-revolution going on in Cuban rums, it seems every time I go there are 3-4 new age-statement rums out there.

[Martin_F]

Nice list, @Ryan

My favorite Havana Club is the Seleccion de Maestros and favorite cuban overall would be the Ron Santiago 20 anos. That's for sipping of course.

Being in the US, I just get the easily available non cubans for Mixers.

[Fugu]

22 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

i suspect plenty of blame to go around for all parties. but i was always of the understanding that most of the family had fled before the takeover. writing on the wall, perhaps, but they got out with everything they could, including recipes etc. now, it reads better for them to have been thrown out. but now, hardly matters.

I may misread your post, Ken, but actual fact is, the family's business had been sized without compensation during the revolution. I guess that's historically undisputed, at least as far as I know the story. Then, exiled, they kept the brand until 1973 without being able to produce. The judicially tricky part here is - the trademark and property rights had actually never been seized, never been taken away from them. When the marca rights had to be renewed in '73, they didn't - the reasons for which may be matter of debate. But most probably because they thought what's worth the cost of keeping a brand which you cannot make any use of (quite logically it seems, as they were in hold of a Cuban brand for a Cuban product...obviously judging it different as later Bacardi...). And having no forseeable chance to ever return to the island they let it go (that's my personal take on it). Therefore, in 1976, Cuba was able to register the brand then. The Helms-Burton Act and its later extension of 1998 (in particular Section 211, which forbid brand registration in the US of formerly seized property) came into effect much later. WTO had declared it being illegal. The following lawsuits never came to a verdict before the trademark protection ran out. So, asking you (as a lawyer), what is the legal frame here?!?

I guess, from a legal aspect, that's the ongoing core question of the whole dispute: Were the Arechabalas still in possession of the brand in 1995 when they sold it to Bacardi? On paper, strictly spoken - no. Since from 1976 until 2006 it was in possession of Cubaexport. But then again - what where the actual reasons for not renewing the trademark in 1973? The original reasons were disseizin, brought about by force.

Not a simple case - from a legal as well as ethics perspective. What Bacardi did later was more than questionable, too.