The Rum Historian title
HISTORY OF CUBAN RUM
31. LA FLORIDA “WHERE COCKTAILS ARE A REVELATION”
“More than over one hundred years ago – in the simple days of 1819 – a typical Spanish chophouse rose above the old city walls, at the entrance to Monserrate gate. It was a pleasant house of grilled windows that homed the beaux, musicians, army officers, attorneys, actors, and men of all nature, people of honor and fashion desirous of the delicious, tasty ‘mixed gin’ or cherry brandy.
In their carriages, the ladies, under their silken parasols, sipped – while being courted by their gallant knights – glasses of the various refreshments peculiar to Cuba.
This ideal, venerated place was named ‘The Silver Pine’.
Twas over a century ago!
At present – in the passage of time – ‘The Silver Pine’ that faces Albear square overlooking the old colonial streets full of the traditions of a splendorous past of majestic heroism, has been renamed ‘La Florida’.
Because the modern ‘cocktail’ is the poetry of liquor.
It is like the slender perfume of a rose. It is the essence of a delicious vibration. The fine crystal of the cocktail glass enables you to enjoy all the good that exists, leaving the hardships of daily life forgotten. The scenery is of unsurpassed beauty. Pain is unnoticeable. Love is sweeter and more tender.
The ‘cocktail’ is spiritualism! … Important magazines in the United States and England wrote – at the beginning of the Dry Era – that, fortunately for the present and future generations, the art of the cocktail would remain, as did ancient culture in Europe during the invasion of the barbarians, safely revered in its most sacred temples, viz; The American Bar in Paris, facing the Grand Opera (at the rear of the Café de la Paix), and the Bar Restaurant La Florida in Havana, Cuba.
Today, - as a century ago – and situated over the same old stones of the ‘Silver Pine’, the Cathedral of the Cocktail where Constante officiates stands amid the streets of traditions for the delight of good drinkers and continues to be the gathering place of men and women who can distinguish the good wines and drink in extasy the essence of a cocktail – sweet symbol of a high and elaborate civilization.
‘The Silver Pine’, ‘La Florida’ café – 1819-1935 – through the ages, always the same … ‘Cocktails’, Refreshments, Ices, Smiles, Flirtations, Happiness, Business, Efforts, Love. Over the same old stones. Facing the same scenary. Eternal, under the same warm, blue sky.”
Some years ago a Mr. Ross Bolton, whom I don’t know, but I wish to thank here, curated the reprint of a little, wonderful book “Bar Florida Cocktail-s 1935”. From this booklet I drew the material presented above. In the course of my now extensive studies on rum and on drinking culture, seldom have I come across a text of such elegance, one so capable of evoking the pleasure not only of drinking well, but of living well, insofar as life allows. Presiding as High Priest over this Temple of the Cocktail was the most celebrated of Cuban bartenders; indeed, one of the most renowned anywhere, Constantino “Constante” Ribalaigua Vert. To him is attributed the phrase “Where cocktails are a revelation and food is most delicious”, from which I have taken the title of this article.
As our readers already know, see “ICE IN A HOT COUNTRY” published in the March 2024 issue, I am not particularly fond of cocktails. However, at this point in my History of Cuban Rum, I could not avoid dedicating some space to the legendary Golden Age of Cuban Cocktails and to its most famous establishment, La Florida. And I hope you won’t mind revisiting one of the sources of the myth, the description of Constante at work, written in 1928 by Basil Woon in his seminal “When it’s Cocktail Time in Cuba”.
“The most famous bar for the sweet mixed drinks so popular with the Cubans is La Florida, behind the Asturiano Club on Montserrat Street. Drinks here, although the place has the appearance of an ordinary bodega, are as expensive as at the Sevilla or the Almendares. The bar, which is also a restaurant and grocery, sprang into vogue due to the remarkable talents of the head barman, Constantino, a saturnine individual whose peculiar gift consists in his accurate, though seemingly casual, measurement of drinks. Six of you visit the Florida and order Mary Pickford. A boy is put to work squashing and squeezing the pineapple. Meanwhile another boy fills six glasses with ice to frost them. When the pineapple juice is ready Constantino pours it in a huge shaker, takes the Bacardi bottle and, without looking, pours a quantity in the shaker. Then, still apparently without a glance at the shaker, he does the same with the curaçoa or grenadine. The drink is shaken by throwing it from one shaker and catching it in another, the liquid forming an half-circle in the air. This juggling feat having been performed several times, Constantino empties the glasses of ice, puts them in a row on the bar, and with one motion fills them all. Each glass is filled exactly to the brim and not a drop is left over. It’s worth a visit to Havana merely to watch Constantino operate. I told him that he could make his fortune in Paris. He smiled. “I no do so badly here”, he said.”
Anyway, if you want to know more about the Golden Age of Cuban Cocktails and the Havana Bar Scene, I recommend reading the excellent book by Jared Brown and Anistatia Miller “Spirit of the Cane. The Story of Cuban Rum” 2017. What I wish to emphasise here, however, is that that Golden Age was, to a significant extent, the product of the arrival and work of Spanish immigrants, figures such as Narciso Sala Parera who purchased, renovated and bestowed the new name upon La Florida in 1898 and, of course, Constantino Ribalaigua.
The dynamism of Havana’s, and indeed all of Cuba’s bars, restaurants and hotels is further reflected in the early organization of the workers in the hospitality sector. According to Manuel Bonera Miranda in his “ORO BLANCO Una historia empresarial del ron cubano” 2.000, “On January 9, 1912, the workers of these businesses made their first attempt to organize themselves, establishing the Unión de Empleados de Café (Bartenders Union), which—despite its name—brought together the employee of warehouses, restaurants, bars, hotels, inns, and other similar establishments. The bartenders, for the moment, were included in it, although not very willingly. Most of them considered themselves specialized personnel and were paid accordingly. … In those days, in fact, the Cuban art of Fine Drinking was beginning to take giant steps”.
Then, Prohibition arrived.
“An American invasion was the reason why Cuban cantineros united. …The very second Prohibition in the USA closed the doors of bars from coast to coast, a flood of American bartenders headed to Cuba to ply their trade. … Not to be out gunned by American entrepreneurial enthusiasm, Cuban and Spanish businessmen who catered to American tastes opened American-style hotels, cabarets and eateries … What every one of these new Havana establishments promised its growing customer base was American service, real American cuisine, real American drinks, and staff that spoke American English.
Cuban barmen heard the call for action. … Bartenders met, on 9 May 1924, in the billiard room at the Hotel Ambos Mundos to compile a series of regulations written by Manuel Blanco Cuétara and drafted by attorney Manuel Zavala. After a couple of interim meetings, the final version of the organization’s charter was approved by the government on 27 June 1924, registering El Club de Cantineros de la Republica de Cuba … within six months, the club recruited 121 members. The membership had funding for a meeting house at Malécon N° 15 and attempted in those early days to publish a magazine. But political infighting and outside agitation from other hospitality unions kept the fledgling group from making any serious advances. It also didn’t help that when President Machado took office, in 1925, he was hostile to any type of labour organization. … Visible signs of a welling pride in the profession of cocktail emerged, Cocktail books were published.” (J. Brown, A. Miller “Spirit of the Cane”). Another indication of the growing importance of the Club de Cantineros was its role in organising, in Havana in 1935, the first National Cocktail Competition.
As I have already noted, nothing in a good book is ever superfluous. Here, therefore, are several additional excerpts from Basil Woon’s “When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba”1928, specifically concerning the influx of American bartenders.
“One of the curiosities among Havana bars is Donovan’s, back of the Telegrafo Hotel. Donovan was proprietor of a bar in Newark, New Jersey, when prohibition came. Most of the other saloonkeepers in Newark swore a little, then philosophically either closed their places, turned bootleggers, or sold soft-drinks. Not so Donovan. That Irishman had been had been too long in the saloon business to quit it then. So he packed up his entire bar – chairs, tables, hanging sign, mirrors and bar itself – and moved it down to Havana. Newark people entering the place rub their eyes and feel transported backward ten years.”
And finally, here is how, much later, Hector Zumbado in his “El Sexto Sentido del barman” published in 1980, evoked the atmosphere of those years.
“It is really in the joyful and effervescent 1920s that the cocktail reaches its full blossoming in Cuba. The Prohibition Act enacted in the United States in 1919 … is a factor of primary importance in the development of Cuban mixology. … This is how many bartenders arrived in Havana, not only from the United States but also from other major tourist centers, such as Eddy Woelke, who came from Paris, and Fred Kaufman, from the Canary Islands. This fusion of international professionals with Cuban bartenders—most of them of Spanish origin—would create a school, a distinctive style of mixology—Havana style, Cuban style—that would in turn enrich world cocktail culture in extraordinary ways.”
I would now like to set cocktails aside and briefly lift our gaze toward Great History, drawing on two particularly insightful observations by Woon, who was a remarkably perceptive visitor.
The first seems to me especially valuable for understanding the formation of Cuban national identity: “It must be realized that the Cuban is a race apart. A Cuban is more a Cuban, if anything, than an American is an American. He as as distinct an individuality as he has a nationality. It may at times be difficult to distinguish between Panamanian, Honduran, Ecuadoran, Costa Rican or Vemezuelan, but he Cuban, as the Mexican, stands alone. That is why patriotism to the Cuban is such a precious thing. It is a nationality christened by the blood of thousands to whom ‘Cuba’ meant ‘Mother’. Their blood is Spanish, but Spanish far removed. The blood of Cuba came from the heroic days of Spain. The temperament of the Cuban, then, is gay, amorous, generous and sentimental. … He is most serious when he is speaking of his country; sentimentally, Cuba to the [male] Cuban is mother, wife, mistress and child.”
The second, by contrast, touches directly on the structural weakness of the Cuban economy, a theme that, unfortunately, is more dramatic today than ever: “Ninety percent of what Cuba eats could be raised in Cuba, but ninety percent of what she eats is imported. The soil surrounding Havana is among the finest in the world; even two crops of potatoes a year are possible; yet most of the vegetables used come out of cans. Cuba even imports tropical fruits, of which she has the largest variety of any country except Mexico.”
POST SCRIPTUM
Nostalgia for the past is widespread. This is hardly new; even in Ancient Greece people longed for the Primordial Golden Age. As far as rum is concerned, such nostalgia makes little sense, see THE GOLDEN AGE OF RUM in the December 2020 issue. But even with regard to life more generally, I believe we should exercise greater caution.
“From Camagüei eastward the road runs through monotonous miles of sugar-cane. Hour after hour the vista hardly changes. … At every station children besiege the train, selling fruit, candies newspapers and lottery-tickets. The train passes many settlements of Haitian cane-cutters, black as coal and almost as naked as Adam and Eve – certainly their habits of living must approximate those of our first parents. If you ever feel tempted to think the Garden of Eden a fine place, take a look at these Adams and these Eves.” (Woon)
-Marco Pierini-
