Bacardi, Cuba and Political Science

An honors student of mine just graduated and is currently in Mexico (I will not name names, but his initials are John Hyatt). He emailed me that the label on a bottle of Bacardi in Mexico states that the company was founded in Cuba. He had never seen that mentioned in the U.S., and asked me about it. Being the good political scientist that I am, in the interest of political analysis I went and bought a bottle of Bacardi (I had to go to the store, so happened also to pick up a bottle of Coke). It makes no mention of Cuba at all, but only Puerto Rico, where the majority of production takes place. It says the company was established in 1862, but not the fact that it was in Cuba.

Bacardi is one of the very few companies that has not written off its losses in Cuba. An article in The Guardian (based on a book that was written on the topic—I cannot say I am interested enough to buy it) notes that Bacardi has given money to the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) and to politicians who support anti-Castro legislation. Bacardi’s very glitzy website has a history timeline, which says that the company’s assets were “illegally confiscated by Cubas [sic] totalitarian regime.”

This raises some questions. Why refuse to list the Cuba connection (at least on the bottle) in the U.S., but not in Mexico? Is it because Cuba is not seen with disfavor in Mexico? Why does Bacardi hang on so much when other companies have decided their property in Cuba is long gone? What is now happening on the land and production facilities it once owned? Is this all just a good excuse for me to make a rum and Coke?

When I discuss Cuba in class, I always admit that I cannot see an easy transition taking place, though I hope I’m wrong. Apparently Bacardi will be right in there, demanding back everything it lost when Fidel began nationalizing.