Bacardi’s Genesis in Cuban Liberation
John Clarke Jr.
August 28, 2008
Rum and revolution have an awesome history, which is why Tom Gjelton's Bacardi and the Long Fight For Cuba is such a good read. Use it as a travel guide; I would. Because if you follow the rum, you'll find the fun. Trust me on this. Years ago I found myself pinballing around post-revolution Nicaragua (don't ask). Fortified with several bottles of Flor de Cano, my friend and I boarded a bullet-ridden puddle jumper and headed for Corn Island, a Nicaraguan outpost in the Caribbean Sea. The island was founded and owned by privateer Captain Henry Morgan (the rum brand namesake) and was teeming with friendly native girls, modern-day pirates called Moskitos, and beach-roving pushers slinging eightballs for $5. Amazing history all locked into one tiny little island. Fun? You bet. Well, Gjelton's is a different story -- it's Cuba -- but the same theory applies.
The book, out this week, follows Cuba’s fight for Independence from Spain and the Bacardi family’s long history as activists, and it offers an alternative glimpse to pre-revolutionary Cuba and Fidel Castro’s 50-year reign. But social, political, and economic histories aside, at heart of the story is Facundo Barcardi’s gamble on rum. Since Cuba was a sugar-producing island, Barcardi realized he could use the molasses byproduct to distill and export rum. The rest is history. So, the next time you drink Bacardi, make it a Cube Libre.
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Posted by Bob Leslie on Wed Sep 10, 2008 at 09.25 am
John Clarke simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about. First of all he doesn’t speak Spanish or he would know that Nicaragua’s national drink is “Flor de Cana” (pronounced Canya) not Cano. Secondly Moskitos (really Miskitos) are only one of six native populations of the Nicaraguan East Coast and were not pirates. Thirdly, whatever happened in Nicaragua, certainly doesn’t apply to Cuba as Mr. Clarke alleges. It is completely different and the word “fun” just doesn’t apply to one of the poorest areas in the hemisphere. I lived in Bluefields for 8 months in 1997 as a professor at URACCAN, a local university. Mr. Clarke would do well next time to get to know a place before writing anything.