Rum Historian by Marco Pierini
The First World War disrupted the European sugar beet cultivation while the demand for sugar to manufacture alcohol for war purposes grew enormously, so the price of sugar skyrocketed. This situation gave Cuba a sudden and gigantic bonanza, the cultivation of sugar cane grew enormously, even at the expense of the forest heritage, and money, a lot of money, came to Cuba in the so called ‘Dance of the Millions’. But then the war ended, in a few years the sugar market returned to normal, prices collapsed, and the island experienced a serious economic crisis.
In 1924, in the midst of the crisis, Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, an influential Havana historian and intellectual, voiced the disappointment of many Cubans in a famous speech titled “The Very-Much-Alive Colony: Cuba Twenty Two Years After the Republic” in which he denounced the corruption and violence dominating the young Republic, too similar in this to the old Colony.
In a quest for pride and national redemption, to highlight the successes and the great potential of the Island, the following year Roig de Leuchsenring, with a group of intellectuals, industrialists, and historians, published a luxury, great book “El Libro de Cuba Historia, letras, artes, ciencia, agricultura, industria, comercio, bellezas naturales” (The Book of Cuba …). Bacardí’s contribution to the book is an important piece of the company’s history and mythology and deserves to be read in full. The translation is mine, with a little help from the internet and my family. I left out just a few lists of names and assignments that are of little interest to the reader today. Enjoy!
COMPAÑIA DEL “RON BACARDI”
Modest Origins
“In 1838 – it’s not long before the centenary - when there was not a single well organized industry in the country, except for the buying and selling of slaves, the Englishman Mr. Nunes set up in Santiago a humble distillery, with the purpose of taking advantage of molasses in the preparation of spirits that would allow him to compete with those that his other countrymen produced in Jamaica and in Martinique, and to turn into good gold coins the effort of a few years of expatriation.
The installation of the still was poor, rickety, miserable; but Mr. Nunes, trying today, trying tomorrow, managed to sell his liqueurs in the cities of the East first, then in all the island and later to dispatch to European and American markets small shipments, then without any industrial brand that distinguished them.
The phlegmatic English’ business was not growing much, however. Owing to the distilling backwardness of the time, lacking enough capital with which to upgrade it and lacking strong ambition himself, Mr. Nunes managed his factory with relative success for 24 years, achieving a respectable collection of coins, but without his products successfully crossing the border.
Then came Bacardí
Thus, Don Facundo Bacardí y Massó decided to acquire the modest factory; he was a Catalan as there are many, of clear intelligence, vibrant energy and strong, disciplined, industrious will. It was the year 1862.
In this Bacardí Company - where the traditions of its founders are preserved and where, from one generation to the next, the memory of all the things of our predecessors is cultivated - there are eloquent data on the work performance of Don Facundo during the early days of the reorganization.
As if he guessed - and perhaps he did guess - that his surname was going to be as famous in the world as that of Napoleon, Columbus and Martí, he dedicated himself completely to pursuing the secret that would allow him to make a perfect brandy, something that exceeded everything he knew and could be created, based on molasses.
It did not take him long to achieve his objective. After a thorough experience, he was able to obtain some distilled, filtered samples, unknown, unique, of a different brandy, of a supreme rum, which was to cover him with glory and wealth in a few years, triumphantly invading all the roundness of the earth. It was in this way - we confess it with pride - and thanks mainly to the inventiveness, the tenacity, and the strength of Don Facundo Bacardí, that Rum Bacardi increased his fame, this rum that is in Cuba the third national product, in quality and quantity, with nothing before it but sugar and tobacco. Don Facundo Bacardí was the one who laid the foundations of this industrial brand and this formidable company, which we now direct as his continuators and which constitutes, without dispute, the industrial entity that gave more prestige and profit to his country, for being entirely creole and being linked to this land totally, spiritually, and economically.
Towards the top
The general plan was laid out, and the route to be followed clearly determined. When the first Bacardí passed away, he was replaced by other members of the family, of that family - although it is wrong to say it ourselves - that has given Cuba liberators, artists, men of letters, and, above all, many good people. Everything was renovated: stills, filters, rectifiers; the building. The last creations of mechanics in the matter of distillation and quality of alcohols, were brought and installed in Santiago, in our house. The demand for Ron Bacardí was already so great in Cuba, and abroad; their name was already so famous that every sacrifice and innovation on the part of Don Facundo’s successors was always insufficient.
The fame of Bacardí Rum, with its very personal taste, since we had managed to eliminate the defects of the other rums because we had discovered how to make it in the right way; the fame of Bacardi, we repeat, always went hand in hand with the improvements of our House, and sometimes it was ahead of us, for which great reason we spent thirty years of constant renewal, of incessant growth, of fruitful, grandiose development.In that era of industrial prosperity, never seen in Cuba, we created the types of rum - Ron 1873, Carta Blanca and Carta Oro, that surprised and amazed drinkers all over the world, who since then only seem determined to consume Bacardí.
The Pinnacle of Success
In truth, there was not and could not be at any time in history, nor in any country, a Rum like Bacardí’s. Not even similar to it. Those that are manufactured outside Cuba, because they do not have the best raw material that exists, which is Cuban sugarcane molasses precisely; and those that in Cuba can be distilled, because they do not possess the secret that our chemists have extracted from Science and Chance, which allows us to obtain a quintessential rum, exempt from that inevitable taste of tanned leather that all the vulgar rums out there leave in the mouth.
In all five parts of the world men agree with that statement of ours. That is why Ron Bacardí won Gold Medals, Diplomas and any other Prizes which have been imagined, at the universal exhibitions in Philadelphia in 1876; Barcelona, 1888; Madrid, 1877; Matanzas, 1881; Paris, 1889 and 1900; Chicago, 1883; Buffalo, 1901; Charleston, 1902; Bordeaux, 1895; Saint Louis, 1904; Havana, 1911; Panama, 1915, and the last in San Francisco, California.
In addition, with Ron Bacardí- recommended by the Palace physician - the current and popular King of Spain Alfonso XIII was cured in 1899 of a dangerous flu, whom our product saved from death; and in gratitude, by Royal Decree we were named - without asking, as those things are usually done - Providers of the Royal House. This is also a fact that demonstrates the fullness of our success.
The Great Reforms
After the war, once the Republic was established, the triumvirate of Don Emilio and Don Facundo Bacardí and Moreau and Don Enrique Shueg and Chassin, three figures to whom we owe most of our present splendor, began the great, the bold reforms, that were to turn the Bacardí House into an admirable factory.
They built new office buildings in the manor house; built another palace for the stills; built large and expensive warehouses; installed 150 horsepower boilers, 50,000 liter tanks, huge filters, automatic testers, lavish laboratories; machines for filling bottles and jugs; and selected and mobilized an army of suitable employees to attend to everything, who in the Bacardí House constitute a large family, closely, affectionately identified.
They opened branches in Havana, North and South America, in Europe, with valuable advertising centers; and the civilized world being no longer sufficient for the spread of Bacardi, they began to penetrate the markets of the East, those of Oceania and those of the African colonies, for which we are currently making considerable shipments of our Rum, on whose markets, located in all the roundness of the earth, the sun never sets.
The Indispensable Social Reason
Given the size of the business; having regard to the growing demand for Bacardi rum from all countries, which forced the company to exceed itself and increase its production every day, Mr. Bacardí and Mr. Schueg understood that the time had come when they could not take care alone of the development of all the energies of the firm and that it was urgent for them to surround themselves with new men to direct and promote the spread of Bacardi.
They soon found them and, so to speak, within the same family. Seasoned to the resounding success, to the constant accuracy, Mr. Bacardí and Shueg soon selected, within the same staff that they had at their disposal, the persons qualified to help them in their great work, whom, by the way, they could more than compensate for the efforts with which they had contributed over the years to the splendor of the house.
The corporation Compañia Ron Bacardí was then constituted (1919), under the chairmanship of Don Emilio - the flag of this company, whose death we will never mourn enough-. We acquired then the beer and ice factory that is located in the lands of “Jesus Maria”, to put it under the tutelage and exacting organization of the Bacardí facilities; a high-tonnage steamer and several schooners were purchased for the cabotage transport of the house products; and the technical staff of this great liquor factory was reinforced, so that the factory’s perfect gear, the sales and promotion system of the Ron máximo, did not suffer from a single defect.
A Radical Change
Everything was going smoothly. The facts showed daily that industrial greatness can be achieved in Cuba, as well as in Manchester, Lyon or Chicago, whenever you want and know how to work steadily. The Bacardí Corporation was no longer only the creator of the third national product, it was also the best and most powerful Cuban industry, perhaps the largest in Latin America, and was, above all, a positive force of the Cuban nation, a true pride for the Lone Star Republic.
But death, which we cannot submit in a business plan, however perfect, took away Don Emilio Bacardi; and although this sad event would have no consequence for this House in the economic order nor in the triumphal march of its products, the irreparable loss of the illustrious old man, has troubled our soul, depriving us of his fruitful inspirations and his noble advice. And it will take a very long time to fill the void that Don Emilio left.
The Economic Force
The Compañia Ron Bacardí has a capital of 3.500,000 pesos; each year it exports at least half a million Cuban products; owing to its factories only, import items worth 500,000 pesos go through the Customs of the Republic. These figures do not require a supporter or a lawyer to defend them.They, by themselves, are enough to prove that in Cuba there are also capable men, and that, when fighting honestly, a Cuban has the right to reach the pinnacle of success.…
The Same Philosophy
This time, in a certain way, death was mocked: because although it deprived us of Don Emilio, the mission, the system, the profile of this great enterprise, has not changed in any of its aspects. The same men, led by the supreme experience - well proven - of Don Enrique Schueg, at every hour that passes leave in the history of the East and of Cuba a new triumph for Rum Bacardí, which, having achieved world reputation, is in all the nations of the earth a free and honorable ambassador of this beloved homeland of ours. Not in vain does it rub shoulders with kings, mentalities and magnates of all latitudes.
Epilogue
We did not put forward these data and figures for our own vanity: that would ultimately be legitimate; but we didn’t ask for awards for our work. It is enough for us that in the mind of each of our compatriots, Ron Bacardí is the only one. What we aspire to - with the previous relation of the history of Bacardi - is to serve Cuba, contributing to enhance its opportunities and its name among Cubans and strangers
POST SCRIPTUM
Just one comment: the name and the fundamental role played by the co-founder, French Cuban José León Boutellier, disappeared entirely from the corporation mythopoietics. A damnatio memoriae that, as far as I know, continues until today.
Marco Pierini
