Rum Historian by Marco Pierini
After two issues focused on current events, we now return to the History of Cuban Rum, recounting the end of Prohibition in the United States and the consequences this major turning point had on Cuba. (For new readers, it could be useful to read HISTORY OF CUBAN RUM 20. PROHIBITION published in the July 2024 issue)
Before starting, I would like to illustrate my methodological approach, or, in other words, an aspect of how I present the result of my research. In my articles I often include quotes from books essays written by other authors. Sometimes the quotes are brief, precise, other times they are lengthy, and occasionally, even very lengthy. Of course, I always provide the author’s name, and the title of the book from which I took the quotes. Why do I frequently use excerpts, instead of writing everything myself, in my own words? Because I believe that research, in every field of knowledge, is a collective endeavour, in which each person builds upon the work already done by others. So, if someone before me has already written well on a certain topic, I see no reason why I should repeat what has already been said in different, and possibly inferior, words. Besides, I think it is useful to make known to a wider audience, in English, texts that are often little-known, forgotten, or written in other languages. Having said this, this article relies, to a great extent, on Lisa Lindquist Dorr’s “A Thousand Thirsty Beaches”, published in 2018. Unless otherwise specified, the quotations are taken from this book.“
By 1930, the failures of Prohibition were hard to miss. Despite ten years of enforcement, the federal government had been unable to stem liquor traffic and indeed fund itself in the midst of increasing complaints about the consequences of enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment. When the Wickersham Commission, established by President Hoover to examine the problems of law enforcement and observance, began its hearings that year, the growing list of problems was inescapable. The federal government had spent millions of dollars, and yet ‘in many cities large and small (there) are as many if not more places where liquor is sold.’ Officials had been corrupted, citizens had lost respect for the law, and the courts had been overwhelmed with individuals charged with crimes. The media had even accused Prohibition agents of outright murder in their efforts to enforce the nation’s dry laws. Yet liquor remained plentiful virtually throughout the nation. To many observers, the traffic in liquor was simply too extensive, too profitable, and too persistent to ever be fully stopped, and they no longer saw the point in trying. It was clear that Prohibition had not eliminated any of the nation’s social ills, indeed it had very likely created more problems than it solved.”
On the widespread consumption of alcohol despite Prohibition, and the ease and ordinariness of drinking it, we have a delightful Cuban testimony. We have dedicated as many as three articles to B. D. Woon’s fascinating book “When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba” published in 1928, but it seems truly inexhaustible. Here is the story of Woon’s interview with Facundo Bacardì, a descendant of the founder and vice president of the company. “Isn’t the United States a big consumer? I asked.A lot of rum is smuggling in, he agreed, but everything with a Bacardi label in New York isn’t Bacardi.
The last time I went to New York two friends took me out for dinner. One of them said we would go first to a place he knew which served genuine Bacardi.
We went there and were served, but when I tasted my glass I shook my head. It wasn’t real Bacardi.
So the second man said: Well, I’ll take you to the swellest place in New York. I’m a member there and I know they’ve got the real stuff.’We went to this other place, a very distinguished pseudo-club, with thick carpets on the floor, a mahogany bar and subdued atmosphere. The bartender ceremoniously poured us three drinks of what certainly looked like a genuine bottle of carta oro Bacardi. But as soon as it touched my lips I knew it was faked. Sadly I shook my head again. I’m sorry, I said, but this isn’t genuine.
The bartender, insulted, called the manager. This gentleman was furious. “What?, he cried, you mean to tell me that isn’t real Bacardi? Let me tell you I’ve been keeping bars for thirty years and know the real stuff. That’s gen-u-ine Bacardi – I’ve been selling it for twenty years”.
I’m sorry, I said, but I’ve been making it longer than that.”
Clearly, even in the midst of Prohibition, it was normal to go around New York’s clubs and drink rum. Slowly but steadily support for Prohibition diminished among opinion leaders and the public at large. The Repeal movement also attracted a substantial number of women, who previously had been pillars of the Temperance Movement. Still, the Republicans continued to defend Prohibition, while in 1932 Democratic candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for President promising the repeal of federal Prohibition laws.
“The Wickersham Commission released its finding in early 1931. Its general report optimistically suggested that Prohibition enforcement was possible by transferring the Prohibition Bureau to the Department of Justice and changing legal procedures to facilitate the flow of cases through the courts. Its conclusions were largely greeted with derision. A popular ditty summed up the nation’s view of the Wickersham Commission work and illustrated the seeming contradictions between the commission’s hopes for effective Prohibition and the reality that Americans saw around every day:
Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can’t stop what it’s meant to stop.
We like it.It’s left a trail of graft and slime,
It’s filled our land with vice and crime,
It don’t prohibit worth a dime.
Nevertheless we’re for it.
Attributed to Franklin P. Adams, it appeared in the New York World in 1931 and soon became part of the ethos of the movement toward Prohibition’s repeal.”
In the end, the weight of the facts prevailed, aided also by the Great Depression.
“Eventually, the problem of Prohibition would be solved by repeal, facilitated by a massive economic depression that made the need for government revenue inescapable, which taxes on liquor could readily supply. In the midst of the Great Depression, the moral issue embedded in Prohibition no longer seemed important. The warm comfort of a legal drink seemed to promise some sustenance to a beleaguered nation. One of Franklin Roosevelt’s earliest acts as president was to legalize beer commenting, ‘I think it’s time the country did something about beer’. By December 1933, enough states had ratified the Twenty-First Amendment, ending national Prohibition once and for all.” At last! On December 5th, to be precise.And yet …
According to Wikipedia – which I would like to thank here, for its great and val-uable work – following the Repeal some states continued Prohibition within their own jurisdictions. Almost two-thirds of the states adopted some form of local option which enabled residents in political territorial units to vote for or against local prohibition. For a time, 38 percent of Americans lived in areas with Prohibi-tion. By 1966, however, all states had repealed their statewide prohibition laws, with Mississippi the last state to do so. A number of smaller jurisdictions also exist, such as cities, towns, and townships, which up to now prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages and are known as dry cities, dry towns, or dry townships. Dry jurisdictions can be contrasted with “wet” (in which alcohol sales are allowed and regulated) and “moist” in which some sales of alcohol are permitted, or a dry county containing wet cities.It is clear even from this scant information – which I haven’t explored in depth – that Prohibition in the United States is not merely a strange relic of the distant past but seems to be deeply ingrained in American cultural and political reality even today. In fact, unfortunately, I fear that it is making a powerful comeback, as I tried to explain in my article PROHIBITION STRIKES BACK in the April 2025 issue.
But what happened in Cuba following the Repeal?
The Repeal came at the end of a dramatic year for Cuba. Over time, the Machado Government had become increasingly dictatorial and repressive, provoking a violent reaction from the oppositions. Strikes, demonstrations, terrorist actions, gunfights, summary executions occurred over and over again, far beyond the traditional violence of Cuban political life.
“In early August 1933 Cuba presented a desolate and disconcerting picture; there were serious strikes in all service sections of Havana, with the railway workers out for the first time. Newspapers were also shutting down. The bars and cafés were closed for the first time in history. Food was scarce. Most shops were shut, and there were few people in the streets. Everyone was asking when the American marines would land.” (H. Thomas Cuba A History, 2001). The situation was completely different from the one described by Woon just a few years earlier.
In August Machado fled and shortly afterwards a full-fledged revolution broke out, which shook the island’s economy and society to its roots, but without managing to bring about a radical change. “The post-Machado leadership changed hands rapidly from moderate reformist in August 1933 to more radical reformist in September to authoritarian populist in January 1934.” (R. Schwartz “Pleasure Island”, 1997). An incomplete or frustrated revolution, from which emerged a new strongman who would dominate Cuban politics until 1959, Fulgencio Batista.
Prohibition ended, but its effects on Cuba did not. It is important to clarify that the average Cuban was traditional and conservative regarding relations between the sexes and public behaviour. While for American tourists Cuba was a place of transgression and forbidden pleasures, most Cubans viewed things in a very different way. “While Cuba’s tourism industry traded on Cuba’s reputation for the exotic, Cubans themselves were considerably less ‘wide open’ and wild antics by tourists were not outside Havana’s main tourist areas. Two young couples who hired a car to take them to see the sights around town discovered the limit on public carousing. They found themselves in jail, charged with an offense against modesty when the local ‘vigilantes’ reported that the ‘girls were sitting in the boy’s laps, were embracing, kissing, and yelling, and that one of the boys had one of the girl’s skirts up over her head.’ The two boys were fined, missed their ship’s departure, and had to have financial help to get out of jail and get home.”
Similar resentment against tourists arose in many cases when their overly free behavior caused scandal and offended the traditional moral values of Cubans. And things grew worse over the years, as American organised crime discovered Cuba.“
American’s use of liquor during Prohibition involved a bit of rebellion, a willingness to flout the law and travel to exotic locales where liquor was legal but the ambiance was more edgy. That aspect of Cuba’s allure faded with Prohibition’s repeal, but travel to Cuba during Prohibition nonetheless laid an important foundation. It demonstrated Cuba’s potential as a vice-soaked vacation paradise. Indeed, while the flow of liquor and tourists between Cuba and the United States diminished briefly in the 1930s, its glamour did not go unnoticed by Meyer Lansky, the infamous mob financier. Unable to corner the market on rum-running out of Cuba during Prohibition, the mod turned its attention to tourist vice in Havana in the years after repeal. By the late 1930s, the American mob conquered Cuban nightlife, controlling Havana’s casinos, nightclubs, illicit entertainments, and sporting venues. Building on Cuba’s allure from the 1920s, it created and high-end vacation paradise promising virtually any pleasure, which reached its zenit in the 1950s. Havana beckoned glamorous stars, musicians, and American investors, who turned a blind eye to the poverty, violence, and corruption around them. By the late 1950s, Cuba was a powder keg and Havana hedonistic vibe helped create the conditions that led to revolution.”
Marco Pierini
