Santiago de Cuba is not only the second largest city of the Republic, but also several years older than Havana. Residents of Santiago call their city the capital of Roma. A local saying goes: “The best rum in the world is Cuban, the best Cuban rum is made in Santiago.” One of the most famous brands of the drink is called Santiago de Cuba. Cuba Ron SA’s master ronieros have respected their hometown: six of the eight products in the Santiago de Cuba rum line are premium. Today this brand is exported all over the world.
Historical reference. Santiago de Cuba became the capital of Cuban rum in 1862, when Senor Facundo Bacardi Masso discovered a way to refine rum and built a distillery here. Bacardi’s technology was truly revolutionary: thanks to it, from low-grade alcohol, rum became the noble drink that we know today. After tasting light rum, the writer Fernando González Campoamor said of him: “The joyful child of sugar cane.”
Almost a century later, in 1960, by order of the new government of Cuba, the Bacardi distillery was nationalized, and a little later it was merged with the Matusalem company and created the Cuba Ron company. The former owners managed to take out the most valuable equipment, yeast strain, technical documentation. But the most precious thing remained: people who devoted their whole lives to making rum.
The young republic needed money, and in the warehouses of Bacardi there were several tens of thousands of barrels of spirits of many years of aging. Based on these spirits, experienced blenders created Santiago de Cuba rum. According to connoisseurs, it tastes much more like an old Bacardi rum than the current Bacardi rum, which is produced in Puerto Rico.
According to maestro roniero José Navarro, senior blender at Cuba Ron, there are at least three reasons why the unique taste of Santiago de Cuba cannot be replicated anywhere else:
- sugar cane for rum production is grown on fertile lands protected from the wind by the Sierra Maestra mountains. A special microclimate has developed here, thanks to which the rum in Santiago de Cuba is softer and sweeter than in other areas;
- former warehouses of Bacardi are located near the railway. Constant vibrations change the structure of the wood of the barrels and affect the process of maturation of spirits;
- At the disposal of the blenders of the enterprise are 90-year-old barrels, in which spirits are aged in the last stages of maturation for the production of old rums.
The fact that Santiago de Cuba is still the capital of Roma is evidenced by the fact that out of the seven best Cuban maestro roneros, three are natives of this city.
The locals have a tradition: so that happiness does not leave the house, before pouring rum into glasses for the first time, the owner must definitely drop a few drops of the drink on the floor – “for the saints”.
Types of rum Santiago de Cuba
6 varieties of Santiago de Cuba rum are produced:
- Santiago de Cuba Carta Blanca is a 3-year-old colorless transparent rum with a strength of 38%. The taste harmoniously combines sweet honey-caramel tones with refreshing notes of grapefruit and flowers. The aftertaste is of medium duration, with a barely perceptible spicy bitterness. The drink is suitable for cocktails;
- Santiago de Cuba Añejo – Rich amber rum, aged 7 years (40%). Taste – sweet, oily, with a hint of cocoa and cinnamon, followed by an almond-chocolate aftertaste with a light note of burnt oak;
- Santiago de Cuba Añejo Superior 11 Años – premium rum, old amber color, 11 years old (40%). No more than 10 bottles of the drink are produced per year. Notes of coffee, creamy toffee, vanilla chocolate on the palate are balanced by hints of prunes and spices. Aftertaste – long, warm;
- Santiago de Cuba Extra Añejo 12 Años – premium rum, red-amber color, 12 years old. The drink has a chocolate-coffee taste with pepper bitterness. The aftertaste is warm, with hints of spices;
- Santiago de Cuba Extra Añejo 20 Años – super premium rum, amber brown color, 20 years old (40%). The drink was first made in 2000, in honor of the 485th anniversary of the founding of Santiago de Cuba. This type of rum is produced in limited quantities once every 5 years. Vanilla-chocolate taste with a note of creamy toffee is complemented by a light tobacco aftertaste. The finish is long, silky;
- Santiago de Cuba Extra Añejo 25 Años – super premium rum, amber brown, 25 years old (40%). The drink was first made in 2005, in honor of the 490th anniversary of the founding of Santiago de Cuba. The taste is soft, with hints of vanilla chocolate, orange, mocha and tobacco. Aftertaste – warm, sweet;
- Santiago de Cuba Extra Viejo Siglo y Medio is a super premium rum released in 2012 to mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Bacardi distillery;
- Santiago de Cuba 500 is a super premium rum released in 2015 for the 500th anniversary of Santiago de Cuba.