The Bacardi familiy was in opposition to dictator Batista who seized power in Cuba by force in 1952. Like many other Cubans the Bacardis supported Fidel Castro as they assumed he would reinstall democracy. But his cooperation with the country's business community was just a smokescreen. In 1960 the Bacardis started leaving Cuba. 

In the first half of the 20th century the Bacardi company was intent on expanding on an international level. As well as Puerto Rico, Mexico was also a location that the company invested in by setting up a production facility there. In the beginning, the business developed very slowly there until the company started to understand the demands of the local market and then tuned the advertising and packaging of their rum to better suit these demands.

These decades were marked by social unrest in every corner of the globe. And Bacardi was not spared this unrest. In Cuba, the former military leader Batista came to power and formed an alliance with the Communist unions, which in turn vehemently attacked the Bacardi Company. These conflicts culminated in Batista, with the force of the police, finally taking over control of the distillery. Cuba's supreme court immediately annulled this act. But it was clear from this point on that the Bacardi brand would always be in opposition to the later dictator.

Democracy in Cuba was clearly drifting into troubled waters. In 1946 all the American Mafia bigwigs met in Havana - an occurence which was tolerated by the Cuban president. Corruption spread like wildfire, and one day, agents of the finance ministry turned up at the Bacardi premises threatening to tax the 'angel's share', the proportion of alcohol that evaporates in distillation. However, due to the company's good political connections, it was able to avoid these Draconian measures.

In 1952 Batista, who had long received the support of the United States, seized power in Cuba by force. Despite Cuba's positive economic development during this decade, the political structure was dramatically weakened under his rule.  Many Cubans, including the Bacardi company under its then president Pepin Bosch, began to see in Fidel Castro a chance for the re-democratization of Cuba. In common with almost the entire Cuban business elite, Bosch supported the rebels of the "26th of July Movement" under Fidel Castro with considerable financial donations, as he himself admitted in the early 1960s during an interview with the New York Times.

The American journalist Tom Gjelten described these political and business associations in his book "Bacardi and The Long Fight for Cuba" in the following way: "Like other wealthy Cubans who supported Castro, Bosch later regretted having helped him, and was unwilling to discuss the matter. And Castro felt equally little compulsion to admit just how much help his movement had received from precisely those businessmen whose fortunes he was later to confiscate."

In January 1959 no one really knew how things were going to develop. The revolution was a success, and Bacardi even welcomed the victory with a newspaper announcement thanking the rebels. Just how close the relationship was between Bacardi and the 26th of July Movement, was demonstrated that same month when Vilma Espin, the daughter of the long-standing Bacardi director and joint partner José Espin, married Raul Castro, Fidel Castro's brother, who is today the President of Cuba. Fidel Castro even insisted that the Bacardi president accompany him on a trip to the USA a short time later.

But it did not take long before the transition phase in which Fidel's government signalled its willingness to cooperate with the country's business community turned out to be just a smokescreen. Eventually, the government began the gradual nationalisation of the country's industry. Pepin Bosch sensed that Bacardi was living on borrowed time, and he fled into exile with his wife when the government demanded that he give up his shares in oil. But not all the members of the family were prepared to accept reality. Daniel Bacardi, who managed the Bacardi family's brewing operations, allowed himself to be misled by the new regime's reforms for a long time - reforms which nonetheless had a positive effect on the poor citizens of Cuba.

However, on 14th October 1960 Daniel Bacardi was also forced to accept that he had been deluded. Fidel Castro had issued a decree ordering the nationalisation of the last major Cuban companies. At the same time as the nationalisation of Bacardi, their biggest competitor, the producers of Havana Club Rum, José Arechabala S.A., came under state control. The exodus of the Bacardis was about to begin. With the exception of a few family members who supported Fidel Castro, most of the Bacardis abandoned their homeland. Those who left were accompanied by the majority of the company's management and engineers.

From this point on, Puerto Rico was to become the centre of Bacardi's production operations. Showing great wisdom and forethought, Pepin Bosch had, during the time of Fidel Castro's predecessor, the dictator Batista, made preparations within the company so that the Bacardi branches outside of Cuba were protected from seizure. Before he left Cuba, he also secured the brand rights.

Just three days after the nationalisation of the Cuban production facilities, Bacardi launched an offensive on all fronts from the USA, and announced its intention to defend its rights should any retailer or importer accept goods from Cuba bearing the brand name Bacardi. In five countries this resulted in legal proceeding which were all ruled in favour of Bacardi. The legacy of the Cuban family had been secured, even though they were no longer able to live in their homeland.

 

Further articles:
The roots of the Bacardi family (history of Bacardi, part 1)
How Bacardi Rum was born (history of Bacardi, part 2)
Bacardi Cocktails (history of Bacardi, part 3)

 

Coming soon: Bacardi's international expansion (history of Bacardi, part 5)

 

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Published in Mixology issue 04/2009.

Author: Lukas Reimer

Translation: Alexander Zuckrow 

Link: www.bacardi.com