Origin and marketing of a genuine Cuban rum, for export and company, 1934-1959

Abstract

This article studies the origin of Havana Club, eclipsed by what happened to the brand after 1959, made by a Cuban company and the subject of litigation with Bacardí, which in 1993 bought its formula from its owners prior to the nationalization of the company. The rum manufactured since then is not the original and it has been said that it was a minor product, but the evidence shows that it was one of the great insular ones, although it was aged by a firm that was not only a liquor store, late in the ideal moment, after the end of the Dry Law in the United States (1934) and taking advantage of the growth of mass consumption, tourism and cocktails. That is why it was destined for North American consumption and used an elaborate marketing that associated it with the patrimonial values of his country and other goods, also for mass consumption, and it stopped being marketed in 1957 due to the problems of access of the island's liquors to the neighboring country.