Rum Historian by Marco Pierini
History of Cuban Rum
23. PLEASURE ISLAND
After a few months’ break, we take up again the story of Cuban rum, in this article, and the next, focusing on tourism and rum in 1920s Cuba.
“It is not worth keeping more - lamented Don Lesmes, who, after doing the business, allowed himself the luxury of a verbal broadside - Hardly any business can be done. The government is careful not to make a mockery of the stupid Rum Treaty with the United States and you have to take many risks to smuggle. With as much money as this business could give! But they do not let it prosper and you have to take advantage of it by drops.
The fact is, there is no spirit of initiative, man. We could get a lot of alcohol into the United States, but the government won’t let us, and we have to be collecting the profits with a sponge. This Government! I’m telling you, they don’t understand anything. It would be enough for the authorities to use their left hand, so that many people could see. But no! The government doesn’t understand. Liquor manufacturers are going broke in Cuba, and meanwhile, Americans are drinking wood alcohol and the crap they send from Nassau.
And Don Lesmes smiled in a grimace of disgust, which concretized his disgust for the government, the wood alcohol, the filth of Nassau, the American consumers and perhaps even for his own rum that he was going to sell us and that, of course, was not the same as he had drunk with us”.
Thus, with the wailings of the clandestine rum maker, Don Lesmes, I finished the latest article of this series (See HISTORY OF CUBAN RUM 22. “CONTRABANDO” in the September issue). Well, Don Lesmes was exaggerating, the Cuban rum producers were not ruined by Prohibition; on the contrary, thanks to Prohibition and to tourism they experienced a huge, lasting success.
As our readers know, some of my articles speak little about rum, but a lot about the historical context. This is one such article. Once again, I apologize, but after covering Prohibition, now I must deal with tourism, otherwise it would be impossible to understand the great changes that took place in the world of Cuban rum in those years. Indeed, this article is devoted to the tourist boom in Cuba in the 1920’s that had so much importance in making Cuban rum known and appreciated all over the world. A fame which endures today.
But let’s start from the very beginning.
Modern tourism started roughly around 1750 with the so-called Grand Tour. In those years, in fact, in Great Britain, but also in France and in other European countries, it became fashionable among young people of the upper classes to embark on a long journey to Italy at the end of their studies. It was a cultural formation journey to see the ancient Roman ruins and the masterpieces of Italian art in person, but it was also a rite of passage marking the end of a student’s life and the entrance into adult life, with all its responsibilities. A sort of luxury sabbatical. Moreover, at that time Italy was a relatively underdeveloped country and life was inexpensive, just like now, when tourists from rich countries travel to the South of the world. Most travellers stopped in Venice, Florence and Rome. Few ventured further South, and only the most adventurous reached Greece, which at that time was still part of the Ottoman Empire.
To cater to the needs of these wealthy travellers, hotels, restaurants, financial services, tourist guides etc sprang up in Italian cities. For more than a century, tourism remained a luxury for the rich. Then, roughly around 1850 things changed. An English pastor and philanthropist, Thomas Cook, invented the organised trip. He convinced the newly founded railway companies to offer group discount tickets, no longer for wealthy gentlemen of course, but for members of the lower classes. Cook organised the first of these trips, in 1841, to take people to a temperance meeting! He started with trips within England, then also abroad, to Belgium and France for the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855. He was, in actual fact, the inventor of mass tourism.
And Cuba? As we know (HISTORY OF CUBAN RUM 3. THE KEY TO THE INDIES in the September 2022 issue) the fascination that Cuba exerted on Americans is older than the US itself, but the first sign of a certain movement of American tourists to Cuba is perhaps the beautiful book of Samuel Hazard “Cuba with pen and pencil” 1870 (see HISTORY OF CUBAN RUM 14 RUM CONSUMPTION IN XIX CENTURY’S CUBA in the December 2023 issue). Later, after the War of 1898 and the American occupation a large flow of Americans (journalists, technicians, businessmen, adventurers and tourists) started to pour into the Island.
“Pleasure Island: Tourism and Temptation in Cuba” 1997, by Rosalie Schwartz tells the story of the birth and development of tourism in Cuba. It is a serious, scholarly book even though, sadly, it dedicates only brief hints to drinking. Unless otherwise indicated, all the quotes are from this book.
From the early years of the new Republic, a vast interest group was formed, always closely linked to politics, to promote American tourism; we can call it the Pleasure Trust. The Pleasure Trust worked on two fundamental lines: first, the promotion of public works, absolutely necessary to modernize, sanitize and make Havana more beautiful, and then the rest of the island: sewer systems, aqueducts, railway lines, roads, cleaning, embellishment, etc. At the same time, it pushed for the approval of laws and regulations to promote gambling and requested concessions for some of its members to build casinos and racetracks, nightclubs and so on. The first part progressed quickly, creating a favourable environment for tourism and also improving the lives of Cuban citizens. The second, however, remained stalled for many years: frightened by the birth of an island of vice too accessible to American citizens, strong religious and moralizing movements in the US pressured the American government to ‘convince’ the Cuban government not to approve those laws. And they were successful.
Only in 1919, at last, did a Tourist bill open Cuba to gambling, with large investment of local and American capital, again closely linked to political power. In the same year, as we know, the U.S. Congress closed down the saloons and for American tourism in Cuba it was instantly a boom. As we have seen in the previous articles, large quantities of Cuban rum were smuggled into the US, but, for those upper-class drinkers that could afford it, there was an even better alternative: not wait for rum and the other spirits to arrive at home, with all the troubles about quality and the law, but go and drink them directly in Cuba. The island is very close, it is beautiful, tropical, exotic and the rum is good, plentiful and can be consumed legally, without any problems, just like a quantity of other alcoholic beverages locally produced or imported.
“By the 1920s a healthful and pleasurable city unfolded before the tourists’ eyes. Electric lights illuminated parts of Havana in the evenings, and electric street railways carried the curious visitor to the city’s suburbs or to the markets and shopping streets that appeared so foreign and exotic to the North American eyes. … For an increasingly mobile and relatively prosperous segment of North Americans, Cuba fulfilled the requirements for desirability and accessibility; … Thus, a North American travel revolution transformed Havana into a tourist mecca.”
In the same years, the sugar market collapsed. Word War I disrupted 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. The development of tourism also helped to alleviate the weight of the crisis.
More than thirty thousand (wealthy) tourists visited Cuba in the winter season 1924-25. For climatic reason, the core of the Cuban tourist season was, in fact, in winter and especially from the opening of horse racing in December to the arrival of the first hot weather in March.
But let’s look at an example of the kind of promotion of American tourism by the Pleasure Trust. The next year “Three hundred members of the Bankers Investment Association of America attended the race on Sunday as the guests of the new management. Financiers from all over the United States were visiting Havana after their annual meeting in Saint Petersburg, Florida. They spent Saturday night at the frontón learning the intricacies of jai alai, the fast-paced handball game of Basque origin. On Sunday they bet on horses, enjoyed a buffet lunch at the Jockey Club, and met various well-established Cubans – perhaps introduced by U.S. Ambassador Enoch Crowder. The bankers should have been in a good mood, with no legalistic officials to confiscate their alcoholic beverages. In contrast to Prohibition-dry Florida, Cuban rum flowed freely.”
These methods and the undeniable charm of Cuba and its rum had an immediate success. “In fact, nearly forty-five thousand tourists visited Cuba just in the four winter months of December through March 1925-26. With the average per person expenditure figured at three hundred dollars, they left approximately $ 13.5 million in Cuba” According to Copilot, roughly $ 300 dollars in 1924 = something more than $ 5.000 to-day and $13.million in 1924 = around 250 million to-day. A large amount of money in a small, relatively underdeveloped country.
The bars and clubs pulled out all the stops to attract the American customers (and not only Americans, many members of the European élites discovered Cuba in those years) with new cocktails and new attractions. Movie stars, singers, intellectuals, millionaires led the way, then crowds of holidaymakers flocked to the Island. New airlines, new ferry companies were born. To promote Pan American Airways new connection to Havana, in 1928, even Charles Lindberg paid a 5days’ visit to Havana. The beverage industry, the entertainment industry, the club scene reached a never-before seen dimension and quality. Wealthy tourists found in Cuba good alcohol, of course, but also music, shows, night clubs, horse racing, gambling houses and brothels, many brothels. They felt they were abroad, in a different and fascinating country, with good weather, more personal freedom, tropical exoticism and cheap prices. But, even though Cuba was formally independent, it was after all an American protectorate, thus you could usually speak English, every-day life was safe and the police very kind. Indeed, American tourists could enjoy a sort of extremely comfortable exoticism and for them Cuba became a veritable Pleasure Island.
For Cubans, things were very different: corruption and violence were part of their daily lives. Some historians argue that the corruption linked to Prohibition and tourism, and the loss of prestige of the Cuban government due to its submission to American pressures, were significant factors in determining the revolution of 1933, which led to the fall of Machado’s dictatorship.
Anyway, among all the spirits, rum was the one which most benefited from both Prohibition and tourism: “By banning the sale of all beverage alcohol in the United States, prohibitionists did what no island distiller could have dared hope for: They pulled weary old rum out of its shallow grave, not only infusing it with life, but giving it a bit of swagger and a touch of class.” (W. Curtis “And a Bottle of Rum” 2006).
In 1933 things changed again. First, the Great Depression reduced the number of tourists dramatically; then Cuba’s revolution of 1933 savaged the island’s reputation as a safe and peaceful desirable destination. “Tourism collapsed along with the rest of Cuba’s economy in the Great Depression. Visitors had spent almost $26 million in 1928-29 but only $ 9.5 million in 1932-33. … Economic depression and political upheaval had taken its toll, and tourism revenues slipped under $ 5 million in 1933-34”. Repeal also took its toll, Americans no longer needed to go abroad to be able to drink freely.
After the revolution “The government became a partner in a resurgence of cultural, as well as economic, tourism. Thus. the successor of the pleasure trust chose not to eliminate tourism but to change its nature, to replace casinos with culture, substitute museums for Monte Carlo.” Actually, by the end of the 1930s Cuba offered tourists both culture and casinos. Tourism promoters had barely pushed the industry back on track when World War II derailed it once more. We’ll get back to this.
Marco Pierini
