Drinks of Puerto Rico, Part 2: The Bacardí Rum Empire

From its humble origins in Santiago de Cuba to a global empire worth billions, the story of the Bacardí Rum family will make your heart break and your jaw drop. Maybe listen to this after 5 o’clock!

Desde sus humildes orígenes en Santiago de Cuba hasta un imperio global valorado en miles de millones, la historia de la familia del ron Bacardí te romperá el corazón y te dejará boquiabierto. ¡Quizás escúchalo después de las cinco!

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Transcript

This episode might make you a little thirsty, depending on what time you’re listening. We’re going to talk about rum. First a little history, then specifically about Bacardí, a brand that is known throughout the world. Before doing our research, all we knew was that Bacardí was Puerto Rican rum. But we didn’t know about its rich and colorful history, which actually begins in CUBA! 

But first a little bit about rum and why we wanted to talk about it. It is tied to cultural identity in the Caribbean, which is where it came from. Like in other Caribbean nations, rum is the most popular alcohol in Puerto Rico. In case you weren’t sure, rum is made from sugar cane, including molasses. It is the main ingredient in Puerto Rico’s national drinks such as the pina colada, coquito (the Christmas drink) and pitorro (moonshine). In Mexico you do a shot of tequila, and in Puerto Rico you order “un palo (or un palito) de ron” (a shot of rum). In the spirits industry, Puerto Rico is referred to as the Rum Capital of the World. Rum is one of Puerto Rico’s main exports. At least 70% if not more of rum consumed in the United States is from Puerto Rico!

According to an online article by Miami Culinary Tours, “The first rum distillery in Puerto Rico was Santa Cruz, which was set up in 1548 by Don Gregorio de Santa Olaya in the town of Bayamon.”  The oldest distillery still in production in Puerto Rico is Ron del Barrilito (which translates to Rum of the Little Barrel or Little Barrel Rum). The rum has been produced there since 1880.

Fun fact: In the 1700s, rum was so valuable and in demand that you could literally use it like currency. Sailors even negotiated rum as part of their salary in lieu of actual money. 
 
 Today there are many brands of rum produced in Puerto Rico, the main being Bacardí, Don Q, Palo Viejo, Ron del Barrilito, and Ron Llave. Now let’s dive in to Bacardí…

The story starts on October 3rd 1813, in Barcelona, Spain, with the birth of Facundo Bacardí Massó (going forward we shall refer to him as Don Facundo – in Spanish Don means “mister” – not “godfather”). Don Facundo was the son of a bricklayer. When he was 16, he and his family moved to Santiago de Cuba (which is on the southeastern side of the island, opposite from Havana).  In 1843, Don Facundo married a wealthy woman named Lucia Victoria Moreau (nicknamed Amalia), and shortly thereafter opened a retail store.  Between 1844 and 1861 he and Amalia had 6 children, two of whom died in a cholera epidemic. In 1855, due to economic factors, his store went bankrupt. 
 During this time, there was no good rum to be found. The rum being made was cheap and low quality, and drank only by the lower classes (I know that sounds terrible but that’s what it was back then). Don Facundo saw a business opportunity here. If he could figure out how to make good quality rum, there’d be a new, lucrative market. So he and a friend named José León Boutellier decided to experiment with the distillation process.
 
 We are not scientists so we will leave it to you to look up exactly what the following all means, but basically the revolutionary improvements they made were: 
 1 – they developed a proprietary single yeast strain which gave the rum a clean flavor profile.
 2 – they filtered the rum through charcoal, which removes impurities, controls the flavor, and removes the color from the rum after aging
 3 – they used a parallel distillation process, whatever the fuck that means.
 4 – they aged the rum in white oak barrels, which resulted in a much more refined, less crude, drinkable rum 

The result? Bacardí Superior, the world’s first clear (or “white”) rum! It was a hit!  
 
 On February 4, 1862, the two men purchased a distillery in Santiago de Cuba and established “Bacardí, Boutellier, and Company.” They came up with their logo (a bat inside a red circle) after Mrs. Bacardí (imagine having that name now?) spotted a colony of fruit bats in the rafters of the distillery. To the Taino Indians, who had lived in Cuba as well as Puerto Rico, bats were a symbol of “good health, family unity, and good fortune.” It was a fitting representation for their new venture. 

That same year Don Facundo’s son, Facundo Jr, planted a coconut palm tree in front of the physical plant. They affectionately called it “El Coco.” Through the years El Coco would come to symbolize the strength of the Bacardí empire after surviving one fire, five earthquakes, and countless hurricanes. It was said that the company would survive in Cuba as long as El Coco survived. 
 
 In 1874, the family bought out Mr. Boutellier and renamed the company “Bacardí and Company.” 
 In 1877, Bacardí won its first award, a medal, in Madrid. That year Don Facundo retired and his three surviving sons took over. 

By the 1880s, the rum had become very popular, including amongst the rich and famous. People started asking for “el ron del murcielago” – the rum of the bat. They started experimenting and drinks such as the daquiri and the Cuba Libre were born (fun fact – but not really fun for Puerto Ricans!: the Cuba Libre was invented in 1900 when American soldiers in Havana mixed rum and coke and lime to celebrate the end of the Spanish American War).
 
 In either March or May of 1886, Don Facundo passed away. 
 
 In 1910, Bacardí became Cuba’s first multinational company when they opened up bottling operations in Barcelona, Spain and shortly thereafter in New York City. 
 
 During Prohibition in the US from 1920-1933 (BOO), Bacardí told Americans, Hey! Come to Cuba to get your drink on! And they did! In 1930, Bacardí moved its headquarters to Havana. In 1931, they opened a distillery in Mexico, and in 1936 opened the one in Catano, in the San Juan area of Puerto Rico. In 1959, they opened a distillery in Malaga, Southern Spain. 
 
Now a little politics. Historically Don Facundo had been pro-Spain, but his sons were on the side of Cuban independence. In 1898 Cuban gained independence from Spain as a result of the Spanish-American War.  
 
 Fast forward half a century to the 1950s. The CEO of Bacardí was Don Facundo’s grandson-in-law, Jose Bosch, nicknamed “Pepin” (pronounced “peh-PEEN”). The dictator Fulgencio Batista was in power in Cuba. His government started interfering in business, and Pepin saw the writing on the wall. Plus he thought that Batista was in cahoots with organized crime. So in 1955 he began to transfer the company assets, including the proprietary yeast strain they developed, and their trademarks, to the Bahamas, a safe haven for businesses.  When the revolution started, the Bacardí family supported Castro because he promised the Cuban people freedom. They even donated money to the rebels and celebrated with Castro publicly when he defeated Batista and took power on New Year’s Eve 1959! But they pulled their support when later that year it became clear that Castro planned to confiscate and nationalize all businesses. Bacardí and the government became enemies. 

In 1960, 98 years after the company’s founding and the planting of El Coco, Castro’s government raided Bacardí’s properties, stole the entire Bacardí operation and all their assets (except, thankfully, for the secret yeast ingredients and secret charcoal recipe, without which the Cuban government could NOT replicate Bacardí Superior white rum). The members of the Bacardí family scattered, some staying in Cuba and others fleeing to other countries. And - to make things a little more sad - that same year El Coco withered and died, making the prophecy come true.  But because they had taken steps to protect their trademark, as well as stashing assets and setting up operations outside of Cuba, Bacardí continued to thrive and expand despite these horrible events. In Cuba, the government took over the Bacardí distillery and continued to make rum, but they could not sell it under the Bacardí name.
 
 Here's an interesting excerpt from a letter written by a teacher named David Calverley who worked in a history class with a member of the Bacardí family: “When the family fled Cuba after Castro drank the communist kool-aid, they were in a good position. First, they could maintain production of Bacardí Rum. Second, informants in their former Santiago (Cuban) operations would tip off the family when the Cuban government sent out shipments of Bacardí Rum. The communists took over the Bacardí operations in Cuba, and they continued to produce and ship out bottles of rum with the Bacardí label. The informants would get word to the Bacardí family, who would, in turn, get in touch with their lawyers in New York. The lawyers would fly to whatever country was the destination for the illegal rum, and get the courts to pass an order barring the shipment. When the Cuban ship turned up, it would not be allowed to offload its cargo. Eventually it would be forced to return to Cuba.”
 
In 1962, Pepín’s desire for revenge was so strong that he came up with a plan to bomb oil refineries on the island to cripple the regime! Through outside connections, he bought an American WWII bomber, which he kept in Costa Rica, and contracted two Cuban pilots, Gonzalo Herrera and Gustavo Ponzoa (in a different version, there’s only one pilot, a guy named Gaston Bernal. I guess all we know for sure is that the pilot’s first name started with a G.).  The plan was this:  the pilot or pilots would make up fake airplane registrations, go to Costa Rica, meet with men (OR WOMEN! WE DON’T WANT TO DISCRIMINATE!) from Guatemala who would sell them some bombs (as one does), then wait a couple of weeks, make their way to Cuba, and start the bombing. 

Well, on the 8th of June, 1962, the pilot or pilots went down to Costa Rica as planned. They landed at a beach called La Llorona – already a bad omen. La Llorona is a well-known urban legend in Latin America about a woman who drowns her children in a river and spends the rest of her life crying for forgiveness and roaming around looking for them (to hear more about the legend, check out episode 42, Puerto Rican Lore, Part 1: El Chupacabra and La Llorona [The Goatsucker and The Weeping Woman]). Back to our would-be bomber pilots. The Guatemalans with the bombs never showed up, and they had to leave when the tide came in. At the same time, the Costa Rican and Nicaraguan authorities started keeping an eye on them, rightfully suspicious. And to add insult to injury, one of the pilots realized that one of the Costa Rican officials was his uncle!  Supposedly this uncle notified either the US State Department or the CIA, depending on what you read, who sent agents in person to tell the pilots to “cease and desist.” The pilots returned to the US and Pepin dropped the plan, choosing instead to donate money to groups fighting against Castro. 

To this day you can’t find Bacardí on the island, and bars and restaurants will most likely serve you their national rum, Havana Club.  
 
 But that never stopped Bacardí. Although where it was once associated with Cuba, it’s now associated with Puerto Rico and the US. We have a lot of Cuban friends and now I’m wondering how they feel about the whole thing. Do they consider Bacardí Cuban or Puerto Rican? Or both? 

Back to the timeline. In 1964, Bacardí set up USA Headquarters in Miami. In 1965, the family set up their corporate HQ in Hamilton, Bermuda. In the early 1970s, they built a 2nd office tower in Miami. In 2010 they moved a few miles away, to Coral Gables. 

Fast forward two decades. Bacardí is a behemoth that just keeps growing. In 1993, Bacardí bought General Beverage, the makers of Martini & Rossi (the huge Italian company known for vermouth and sparkling wine; M&R also owned William Lawson’s scotch whisky). In 1995, they bought Dewar’s whisky AND Bombay gin. In 2002, they bought Cazadores tequila. In 2004, they bought Grey Goose vodka. In 2006, they bought more vodka when they acquired 42 below, a company in New Zealand. In 2013, they bought St. Germain elderflower liqueur. In 2015, they bought Louisville Distilling Company, which makes Angel’s Envy bourbon. In 2018, they bought Patron tequila. In 2023, they bought Ilegal mezcal and purchased a majority stake in D’usse Cognac.
 
 Bacardí’s San Juan distillery sits on 127 acres and is the largest in the world. They call it “the Cathedral of Rum” and you can take a tour all throughout the year. Here they produce more than 100,000 litres of rum every single day, and they currently have over 500,000 barrels of rum in the aging process – more than any other rum producer in the world. 
 
 Here are some more numbers for you number lovers: 
 Bacardí operates in 35 countries and owns over 200 brands, which are sold in 160 countries. This is not just the rum, remember. This is everything they’ve acquired too. They are the largest privately-owned spirits company in the world. It is estimated that the family’s holdings amount to 19 billion dollars. Sometimes there are rumors that they will go public but that is not the case yet. The current Chairman of the Board and leader of the Board of Directors is Facundo L. Bacardí, who is the great-great grandson of the founder. The current CEO is an Indian-born gentleman named Mahesh Madhavan. 

Bacardí employs around 9000 people worldwide. They produce 100 million bottles (17 million cases) of Puerto Rican rum every year. They use 14 million gallons of molasses per year (molasses being rum’s main ingredient). The product gets sent to Jacksonville, FL in stainless steel tanks to get aged, blended, bottled, and distributed throughout the US. 

The San Juan distillery supplies 83% of Bacardí rum consumed worldwide.
 60% of that 83 goes to the US. The other 40% is distributed throughout Europe, South America, Central America, and Asia. Asia is an emerging market for Bacardí. They have a small distillery in the southern part of India that produces 1% of the rum for the continent. 
 
 Bacardí has won over 1000 awards and is a globally respected brand. Their vision is driven by three main values: FEARLESS, FAMILY, FOUNDERS. They give back to the environment and the community. One of their programs which we love is called “Shake Your Future,” where they train unemployed young adults in the art of bartending!

Bacardí’s most popular rum is their white rum, Bacardí Superior. This is in just about any liquor store that sells Bacardí.  It is said to be the very first mixable rum. Did you know! When you order from them online, you could have the label personalized with your name and a one-line quote underneath. What would YOUR quote be? 

Bacardí also offers Dark and Gold rums, a Reserva Range, a spiced rum, and flavored rums (Mango Chile, Dragonberry, Lime, Coconut, Mango, Limon, Raspberry, Pineapple and Tropical (a blend of coconut, pineapple and guava). Which one would be YOUR favorite?  They also offer a variety of flavors through their Cocktails in a Can and Cocktails in a Bottle (SEE BELOW IN RED BUT WE DON’T HAVE TO READ THEM).

COCKTAIL IN A CAN

Mojito (regular, mango and strawberry)

Piña Colada

Rum Punch

Bahama Mama

Limon and Lemonade

Lime and Soda

Sunset Punch 

COCKTAIL IN A BOTTLE

Island Punch

Rum Punch

Bahama Mama

Mojito

Hurricane

Zombie

Island Tea

 Outside the US you may find other flavors such as Ginger. And there are discontinued flavors such as Razz, Banana, Vanila and Wolf Berry.  

THE LEGEND OF 151
 Bacardí 151, which was 151 proof (a whopping 75.5% ABV < alcohol by volume>) was discontinued in 2016. It was flammable! The lid had a built-in metal flame protector! 

We will leave you with something to try, and you don’t have to wait for the holidays. Because life is too short to not enjoy Puerto Rican food and drinks year-round! Here is Bacardí’s recipe for coquito, a drink sometimes referred to as Puerto Rican eggnog (even though it’s not typically made with egg - tho it can be - but that’s a debate for another time!). The recipe calls for Bacardí’s most popular rum, the Superior brand white rum.  So here it is and of course we will link to it in the show notes: 

1 L BOTTLE BACARDÍ SUPERIOR RUM

15 OZ CREAM OF COCONUT

14 OZ CONDENSED MILK

12 OZ EVAPORATED MILK

2 TBSP VANILLA EXTRACT

CINNAMON TO TASTE

Pour all ingredients into a large punch bowl and mix 

Refrigerate until chilled 

Serve in individual cordial glasses or mugs 

Garnish with ground cinnamon or a cinnamon stick if desired

https://www.Bacardí.com/us/en/culture/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-Bacardí-rum/
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https://www.discoverpuertorico.com/article/puerto-ricos-national-drink-pina-colada
https://www.Bacardílimited.com/our-company/our-history/
https://www.fdiintelligence.com/content/feature/view-from-the-csuite-Bacardí-corporation-president-and-ceo-joaquin-Bacardí-29045
https://www.Bacardí.com/us/en/our-rums/
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https://spiritz.in/2023/07/28/Bacardí-releases-flavored-rums-in-india/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/Bacardí/?originalSubdomain=bm
https://www.Bacardí.com/us/en/rum-cocktails/coquito/
https://www.discoverpuertorico.com/article/guide-to-rum-tasting-puerto-rico#:~:text=The%20elaboration%20of%20rum%20is,it%20produced%20a%20distilled%20spirit.
https://www.miamiculinarytours.com/blog/rums-of-puerto-rico/#:~:text=By%20law%2C%20there%20are%20certain,legal%20requirement%20in%20the%20world.
https://marketrealist.com/company-industry-overviews/who-owns-Bacardí/
https://www.cravath.com/news/Bacardís-acquisition-of-ilegal-mezcal.html#:~:text=On%20September%2011%2C%202023%2C%20Bacardí,leading%20super%20premium%20artisanal%20mezcal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facundo_Bacardí
https://www.elmesondepepe.com/Bacardí-rum-history/
https://theculturetrip.com/caribbean/cuba/articles/cuba-and-Bacardí-a-complicated-history
https://www.businessinsider.com/brought-to-you-by-podcast-btyb-Bacardí-fight-for-cuba#:~:text=Despite%20the%20Cuban%20government%20seizing,it%20under%20a%20different%20name.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/Bacardí-bomber