To conclude our 6-part series on the Bacardi success story, our author showcases the diverse qualities of this historic rum - from Ron Refino Consumo Corriente to Reserva Limitada.

As Don Facundo Bacardi began experimenting with the character of his rum, he couldn't have foreseen that he was laying the foundations for generations of Bacardi rums, each with their own, inimitable character.

In 1862, having purchased the La Tropical distillery in Santiago de Cuba from John Nunes, his former employer, he created a distillate which was to revolutionize the taste of Cuban rum and which laid the groundwork for his later success. Employing a special wood charcoal filtering system which had been developed for the production of vodka by the chemist Johann Tobias Lowitz, Bacardi produced a light, pale, mature rum which was unusually soft and mild. This product, originally known as Ron Refino Consumo Corriente, later became well known as Bacardi Superior.

Bacardi continued working on and refining his vision. In 1873, Bacardi Extra Dry was created in memory of those who died in the Virginius Affair. This rum, used as the basis for classic cocktails such as the Cuba Libre, Daiquirí and Mojito, was to become the best-selling rum in the world. The next breakthrough came in 1889 with the switch from the traditional pot-still distillation method to using multi-column stills. This resulted in improved yields and more smoothness in the final distillate.

During Prohibition, Havana became an Mecca for countless Americans who'd had enough of quenching their thirst on Bathtub gin and illegally-distilled booze. After the end of the alcohol ban, the Bacardi cocktail returned to the United States and with it went the Mai Tai, Hurricane, Piña Colada and other Tiki classics which simply couldn't be made without the smooth, fresh Bacardi rum aroma.

Driven out of their Cuban homeland and burdened with the loss of the entire commercial facilities on the island, the Bacardi company had to adapt quickly in order to maintain its status as an internationally-recognized brand. The president of Bacardi, Pepin Bosch, opted for a strategy of fast expansion into new markets.

The first step into the new epoch was to safeguard the brand copyright in those countries to which Bacardi had been exported until the company's exodus from Cuba. The company instigated lawsuits in all the regions where rum from their Cuban distilleries was sold and thus ensured that only the Bacardi company, as the copyright owner, was permitted to sell rum bearing the Bacardi label. The most significant decision was the verdict in a British court in 1968, which led to the new Cuban state finally dropping its claims on the brand.

In the second step, Pepin Bosch invested in new distilleries and bottling plants. Within just a few years, the company expanded to open facilities in Brazil, the Bahamas, Canada, Martinique, Panama and Spain. "Fidel Castro stole 70 million dollars from us and we don't even feel it", said Bosch confidently in an interview at the time. Parallel to the establishment of the broadly-scattered international facilities, a quality-control centre was built in Nassau in order to ensure that Bacardi rum was produced to the same quality everywhere in the world.

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.

The Bacardi family became involved in Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain. At the end of the 19th century export to the United States grew and the American influence became significant and fruitful for the success of Bacardi cocktails. This part of our Bacardi series is introducing the most well-known Cuban classics based on Bacardi rum.

As we reportet in part two of this series, the Bacardi family was actively involved in the Cuban independence movement. For many years, Emilio Bacardi collected donations for the rebel army which active in the Cuban hinterland. He also served as one of its city-based contacts for secret communications. His son Emilito even became actively involved in combat by joining the rebels and fighting under the command of the popular rebel leader Antonio Maceo. The Spanish authorities were not oblivious to the Bacardis' sympathy for the cause of independence: This was to result in Emilio being imprisoned several times, while the rest of the family had to seek temporary exile in Jamaica.

Don Facundo Bacardi began to deal with the art of distillationin in collaboration with Jose Leon Boutellier. The new rum style he created proved to be a success with the customers of his brother's shop. The symbol of the bat and Don Facundo's signature helped raise the brand's recognition.

When Don Facundo began to develop an interest in rum in the middle of the 19th century, his timing could not have been better, as already described in part one of our series. The Spanish monarchy, which had prohibited the production of rum until 1796 on health and moral grounds, now actively promoted the production of hard liquor which would be able to "satisfy the taste of the court and the elite of the Spanish Empire", as stated in the official tender. 

At this time, the Cuban sugar cane plantations, which were flourishing due to the favourable climate, all possessed small distilleries in which they produced Aguardiente, a primitive form of rum, from molasses, a "waste product" of sugar processing. Aguardiente was the drink of the workers, and it was served directly from the barrel in taverns or so-called Pulperias, open-fronted stand-up bars. The reason for its poor quality was the fact that hardly any modern distillery know-how had been imported to Cuba, unlike the French and British islands in the Caribbean. An additional hindrance was that Cuban sugar cane has an extremely high sucrose content, which, in uncontrolled distillation conditions, can lead to rapid, unrestrained alcohol production and high temperatures. This in turn kills the yeasts prematurely, with correspondingly fatal consequences for the end product.

Bacardi Rum is a success story that has influenced an entire region and established a whole new category of spirits. Bacardi has become a symbol of summertime and lust for life all over the world. But paradoxically, nobody knows the full story. Here we're going to tell the Bacardi story over the course of six articles.

You know Bacardi? Are you sure? Then, dear reader, you'll surely know that the name 'Bacardi' is stressed on the final 'i'. As soon as one begins researching the history of this legendary brand of rum, there emerges such an abundance of little-known and startling facts that one series of articles hardly suffices to relate them all. Being thus limited to focussing on the essentials, we'll start by telling you about the roots of the family that, right up to the present day, runs the largest family-run spirit company in the world.