Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba
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The other dimension to the Bacardi interest in Cuba was sentimental. In 2003 the company spent eight million dollars on a visitors’ center in Puerto Rico that told the Bacardis’ Cuba story in great detail, complete with replicas of the original Santiago distillery, the company offices on Aguilera Street, and the art deco executive bar at the Edificio Bacardi in Havana. The center was largely the work of Pepín Argamasilla, a trained historian who was the grandson of José Argamasilla, the company’s last public relations chief in Santiago, and his wife Zenaida Bacardi, Emilio Bacardi’s granddaughter. Upon becoming chairman in 2005, Facundo Bacardi threw his support behind such heritage efforts, even creating a foundation to support them. One of the first projects was to provide funding for Argamasilla and his cousin Mari Aixalá to produce a deluxe, limited-edition coffee-table book on the Bacardi history, largely for the family’s own use.
Industry analysts had differing views on the company’s investment in highlighting its history. Some saw it as an effective way to promote brand awareness and loyalty, while others saw it as a wasteful expense that the directors of a public company would never approve. Tom Pirko, the analyst who had followed Bacardi closely for a long time, scoffed at the Bacardi museum project, telling a Miami Herald reporter that such projects are “monuments to vanity.”
The company’s fierce determination to challenge Pernod Ricard over the use of the “Havana Club” trademark stemmed in part from its interest in post-Castro Cuba and its concern about who would benefit from Cuban rum sales to the United States. But the campaign also reflected the Bacardis’ personal passions. Tom Pirko was intrigued when Bacardi executives rolled out their own “Havana Club” rum in August 2006, supposedly based on a formula the company had acquired from the Arechabalas when it purchased their trademark rights. “Following this company is like watching a long-running soap opera,” he said at the time. “Only Bacardi behaves like this. It’s a very macho culture, a very Latin culture, very emotional.”
In the spring of 2007, an appeals court in Spain threw out Bacardi’s claim that it owned the “Havana Club” trademark in that country, leaving the brand with Pernod Ricard and its Cuban government partner. The decision meant the French-Cuban venture was essentially free to sell its Havana Club rum all across Europe without interference from Bacardi. The United States, on the other hand, appeared to be Bacardi territory, barring the reversal of earlier rulings that took the “Havana Club” rights away from Pernod Ricard and CubaRon. Unanswered was who would ultimately prevail in Cuba, the country that mattered most. Contained in that question was the mystery of Cuba’s future.
The alliance between the Cuban government and Pernod Ricard appeared solid, but it was impossible to say whether that might change in a post-Castro era. It depended on how much of Fidel Castro’s regime would survive him and what character it would have. Would the technocrats and managers responsible for Cuba’s economic activity maintain their positions after Castro was gone, and where would their loyalties lie? Would foreign firms that worked closely with Cuban authorities during the Castro era be rewarded for their role or be seen as having collaborated with an undemocratic regime? The joint venture with the totalitarian Cuban state was a classic example of crony capitalism. Pernod executives were complicit in the maintenance of a two-tier system under which Cuban professionals earned a tiny fraction of what their French counterparts made, served at the whim of Communist bureaucrats, and enjoyed no independent labor rights. It was not inconceivable that a future Cuban government, responding to popular pressure, might reconsider joint ventures established under the old regime. Pernod Ricard had only a 50 percent interest in Havana Club International. When asked during the 1999 Havana Club trial whether the Arechabalas might seek to reclaim their rum trademark under a new government, Pernod executive Thierry Jacquillat candidly responded, “Obviously there will be litigation.”
Both sides were gambling that their positions would be strong. In his 1993 letter warning other liquor companies to stay away from former Bacardi assets, Manuel Jorge Cutillas said his company expected “that under a future democratic government, traditional constitutional guarantees will be restored and unlawful conveyances by the Castro regime will not be recognized by the courts as passing good title.” Cutillas predicted the Cuban courts in the post-Castro era would “recognize and implement Bacardi’s right to recover damages from anyone who has occupied and exploited Bacardi’s properties at any time during the Castro regime.” Such bold declarations surely amounted in part to bravado by company lawyers. It was hard to see how the company could be so confident its interests would be respected under a new Cuban government, even a democratic one.
Back when Bacardi Rum was the leading all-Cuban company on the island, its nationalism was beyond question. In the early twentieth century, many Cuban political and business leaders were accused of being overly subservient to the United States, but never the Bacardis. Since going into exile, however, Bacardi had pursued its interests in Cuba by working through the U.S. government. Indeed, to the extent the company would have clout in a new Cuba, it would largely be the consequence of U.S. legislation working in Bacardi’s favor. Under the terms of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, the restoration of trade relations with Cuba could depend on the Cuban government first returning confiscated properties to the original owners or their designated heirs. During the Havana Club trial in New York, a Bacardi lawyer interpreted this provision of the law to mean that “when the preconditions for the lifting of the embargo are satisfied, it will be Bacardi, not Havana Club, that has the rights to the [Havana Club] trademark in Cuba.”
The Bacardi case against Pernod Ricard and its Cuban government partner was also reinforced by the 1998 Section 211 legislation, which effectively precluded the French-Cuban joint venture from registering the Havana Club trademark in the United States. Some Cuban nationalists might argue that by using the U.S. government to advance its interests in Cuba, the company had surrendered the patriotic high ground that Emilio Bacardi once held as a defender of Cuban sovereignty in the face of U.S. interventionist pressure. The country’s epic myth had always featured Cubans fighting bravely for their freedoms against foreign enemies, and Fidel Castro drew regularly on this theme to give his revolution historical legitimacy. Such a representation could now be turned against the Bacardis.
But it was by no means clear that Cubans were still motivated by nationalist arguments. After fifty years of hardship and broken promises, there was significant cynicism in the population. One dissident Cuban, writing anonymously from Havana for the U.S.-based CubaNet Web site in 2004, argued angrily that the Castro regime “has destroyed any nationalist sentiment among the youth sector of the population.... Emigrating to the United States or waiting for Fidel Castro to die, those are the favored options in Cuba. If there were a referendum to choose between sovereignty and annexation to the colossus of the north, the independent Cuban nation would perish unnoticed, and this is the crime that history will not pardon.”
The relative stability of Cuba during the shift of leadership from Fidel to Raúl Castro, culminating in Fidel’s resignation and Raúl’s “election” as his successor in February 2008, suggested that change on the island was unlikely to come quickly or conform to any pattern seen elsewhere. For a decade or more, Cuba analysts had been studying the transitions from Communism to democracy in Eastern Europe for clues as to what might happen in Cuba, but the comparison was far from perfect. Among other factors, there was no Eastern European counterpart to the Cuban exiliado. The Cuban-Americans of south Florida promised to be an independent force in a Cuban transition, though it was unclear whether their effect would be to encourage Cubans on the island to embrace change hopefully or to resist it defensively.
The exile community had long been a source of financial support and inspiration for Cubans still in Cuba, but Fidel Castro had warned endlessly that the “Miami Cubans” might one day return and reclaim the houses they had abandoned, dislodging anyone who was living there
. Some exiles opposed contact with Cuba so rigidly as to suggest they had no sympathy for the position of ordinary Cubans who could not afford to take morally pure stands against the Castro regime. Was there something about living long and comfortably in the United States over time that had narrowed the exiles’ thinking, making them less Cuban and more American? José Martí, writing from New York in 1881, considered whether the “colossal nation” that was his adopted home contained “ferocious and terrible” elements. “Does the absence of the feminine spirit, source of artistic sensibility and complement to national identity, harden and corrupt the heart of this astonishing people?” he wondered.
The one certainty about a transition to a new era in Cuba was that it would not come easily. Nothing did in Cuba. One wise man who always counseled against despair was Emilio Bacardi. Writing from Santiago in 1907 to his American friend Leonard Wood, Emilio said it should not be so hard for Cubans to find the president they deserved. “We are neither as difficult nor as bad as we are said to be,” he wrote. “We need tenderness and tolerance; we need someone who is just and who truly loves his nation.” A century later, Cubans needed that leader more than ever.
Emilio Bacardi at about the age of thirty, a time when he was deeply involved in revolutionary activity in Santiago.
Bacardi Family Collection
Santiago de Cuba in the nineteenth century, when goods were transported to and from the harbor by mule train.
Franklin Matthews, The New-Born Cuba
The tin-roofed Bacardi rum distillery on Matadero Street in Santiago. The palm tree in the front yard was planted by Facundo Bacardi Jr. shortly after the distillery was opened in 1862.
Compañía Ron Bacardi, S.A.
Don Facundo Bacardi, the family patriarch, standing in the rear, with his son Facundo Jr. on his left and his wife, Amalia Moreau, and their daughter Amalia on his right, alongside Georgina, the family servant. Emilio Bacardi and his wife, María Lay, are seated with five of their six children, in early 1885.
Bacardi Family Collection
Antonio Maceo, the “Bronze Titan,” commander of Cuban rebel fighters during two independence struggles.
Gonzalo de Quesada and Henry Davenport Northrop, Cuba’s Great Struggle for Freedom, 1898
José Martí, the apostle of Cuban independence, in Jamaica, 1892.
Valdes, Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida
Officers of the Cuban rebel army, a racially diverse force.
El Libro de Cuba (1925)
The Agramonte Regiment of the Cuban rebel army, during the second independence war.
F. D. Pagiliuchi, Harper’s Weekly, February 19, 1898
Colonel Emilio “Emilito” Bacardi as a young rebel army officer.
Bacardi Family Collection
Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders atop San Juan Heights, Santiago, July 1898.
William Dinwiddie, Courtesy Library of Congress
Emilio Bacardi as mayor of Santiago, at work in his city hall office.
Bacardi Family Collection
Gen. Leonard Wood and Emilio Bacardi, reviewing street cleaning operations in Santiago. Wood is seated on the left. Emilio is in the white straw boater hat.
Scribner’s Magazine
Santiago, before and after Leonard Wood's cleanup and reconstruction campaign.
Louis A. Perez, Jr., On Becoming Cuban, 1999
Leonard Wood, the U.S. military governor of Santiago and later all Cuba. Mayor Emilio Bacardi respected Wood’s practical achievements, but like other Cuban nationalists he was dismayed by Wood’s efforts to thwart Cuban independence.
Library of Congress
Emilio Bacardi Moreau— rum company president, mayor, senator, author.
Bacardi Family Collection
Elvira Cape, Emilio Bacardi's second wife and fellow revolutionary conspirator.
Bacardi Family Collection
Emilio and Elvira on a trip to Egypt, 1912. They purchased a mummy while in Egypt and sent it back to Santiago for display at the Bacardi Museum.
Bacardi Family Collection
Emilio, Elvira, and their daughter Amalia playing chess.
Bacardi Family Collection
Emilio Bacardi and Elvira Cape, with their children (with spouses) and grandchildren at Villa Elvira.
Bacardi Family Collection
Mimín Bacardi Cape, with her bust of José Martí, one of many sculptures she made.
Bacardi Family Collection
Emilio (holding his hat) at the inauguration of a new Bacardi distillery, 1922. At right is Enriqueta Schueg, daughter of Amalia Bacardi Moreau and Enrique Schueg. It would be one of Emilio’s final public appearances.
Bacardi Family Collection
Facundo Bacardi Moreau (Facundo Jr.) on a trip to Europe. He was the first master rum blender in the Bacardi firm, having learned the art of rum making at his father’s side.
Bacardi Family Collection
Three Cuban gentlemen: left to right, Jose "Pepe" Bacardi, Facundo "Facundito" Bacardi Gaillard, and Pedro Lay. Pepe Bacardi was sent to Mexico to oversee the Bacardi expansion there. Facundito Bacardi was generous with his money and made friends across Cuba. Pedro married one of Emilio Bacardi's daughters and rose to a senior management position in the company.
Bacardi Family Collection
An ad for Bacardi during Prohibition days, when tourists were encouraged to fly from the “dry” United States to “wet” Cuba, where Bacardi rum would be available in abundance.
Compañía Ron Bacardi, S.A.
A group of Bacardi employees and sales agents in the 1920s. The sign in the background features the slogan “The One That Has Made Cuba Famous” alongside the Bacardi bat. The bottle of Bacardi rum on the map of Cuba sits at the location of Santiago, the Bacardi hometown, on the island’s eastern end.
Ernesto Ocaña
Advertising aimed at U.S. tourists in the 1920s and 1930s promoted the Bacardi association with Cuba, a favored vacation destination.
Compañía Ron Bacardi, S.A.
Parque Céspedes, or the Plaza de Armas, the town square in Santiago, as it appeared in the 1920s. Emilio Bacardi and his brother Facundo attempted to provoke an anti-Spanish uprising here in 1868. The three-story building at the left is the Club San Carlos, the favored Bacardi drinking location for many years. Family members gathered on the club balcony to watch Fidel Castro speak triumphantly upon his arrival in Santiago on January 1, 1959.
Manuel R. Bustamante Photograph Collection, Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida
Emilito Bacardi with his sisters, about 1930. To his right are María (center) and Carmen, daughters of Emilio Bacardi and María Lay. In front are Emilito’s half sisters, the daughters of Emilio and Elvira Cape. From left to right: Marina, Lucía (“Mimín”), Adelaida (“Lalita”), and Amalia.
Bacardi Family Collection
Bacardi advertising in the 1930s and 1940s.
Compañía Ron Bacardi, S.A.
Bacardi advertising in the 1930s and 1940s.
Compañía Ron Bacardi, S.A.
Inside the Bacardi factory in Santiago about 1930. Bacardi rum was bottled and sold in wooden crates, visible at right, or in wicker-covered jugs, shown stacked on the mezzanine.
Author Collection
Bacardi administrative offices in the 1930s. The company management favored open space to facilitate communication.
El Libro de Cuba
Enrique Schueg, son-in-law of Don Facundo Bacardi, the company founder. Schueg presided over the Bacardi Rum Company during its years of key growth and international expansion, from 1922 to 1950. He is seated before the company’s original pot still.
Author Collection
Daniel Bacardi, left, with Labor Minister José Morell-Romero in 1950, on a visit to the Bacardi factory in Santiago.
Print courtesy Compañía Ron Bacardi, S.A.
Bacardi president José “Pepín” Bosch
, the son-in-law of Enrique Schueg, speaking at a convention of Bacardi sales agents in 1953. Seated to his left is Olga Covani Bacardi, granddaughter of Emilio Bacardi and mother of future Bacardi chairman Manuel Jorge Cutillas.
Author Collection
The art-deco Bacardi building in downtown Havana in 1952, the fiftieth anniversary of Cuban independence.
Print courtesy Compañía Ron Bacardi, S.A.
Bacardi president Pepín Bosch (center) at a dinner in Santiago, speaking to Cuban president Carlos Prío, under whom he served as finance minister. On Bosch’s left is Luis Casero, mayor of Santiago and a fellow minister in Prío’s cabinet.