028. rum, actually
*please note, this is an automated transcript*
[00:00:00] Carmen: I see exactly like one of your eyes and this is quite interest.
[00:00:03] Fryda: Yeah, Carmen and I are currently recording in the same place, which is not normal for us. We're usually across the country from each other. And in order to soundproof the situation, we've put up a bunch of foam pads and we're looking at
[00:00:20] Carmen: each other through a little crevice through romantic.
Crevice, you know, next thing you know, we're gonna do a lady on the tram thing with a spaghetti. Yeah. But just kidding, because we're both 30 and we're both gluten and intolerant up at this point. So
[00:00:45] Fryda: Hey,
[00:00:45] Carmen: Carmen. Frida what's up.
[00:00:48] Fryda: Well, you know, enjoying this view. So almost to celebrate this occurrence, we are doing a drink with, take it easy episode today. We're inviting you to have some drinks with us as we go through this episode about Rome
[00:01:03] Carmen: Elano because what is more Cuban than rum? Honestly? I
[00:01:08] Fryda: don't know.
So maybe
[00:01:10] Carmen: teeth continue.
[00:01:12] Fryda: So , so what we're gonna do is like throughout the episode, we're gonna arrange for three drinking experiences. We're gonna pause, tell you to have a drink, run you through the drink and how to make it, and then we'll keep going. So
[00:01:28] Carmen: for your drink ingredients, please reference the show notes.
We will have a little shopping list. We are going to make a GU and a Moto, not in that order, but just so that you know, what's coming up, so buckle up and try to eat some bread while you're at it.
[00:01:40] Fryda: Yeah. So if you're like listening to this at six in the morning, On a Wednesday and you're having a rough week here.
I'm very sorry. We're sorry. we're about to talk a lot about drinking.
[00:01:50] Carmen: So I was actually thinking about rum and why it's so synonymous with being Cuban. And I realized that for being a Cuban person, I have zero nuance about rum. I couldn't sit there and have any kind of conversation about rum with anybody.
And I was like, we need to fix that. So here we go. You're welcome. In a way, it's almost kind of like, if you are a fish, you never really think about water, you know, it's that normal for us. Yeah. Ru
[00:02:15] Fryda: or the concept of rum was all around me growing up, uh, instead of referring to a specific kind of alcohol, my family would always say like, pass me El wrong.
Theran run this from that. So I thought, honestly, at some point I was like, Is wrong. Just like another word for alcohol because of like the interchangeability. Um, so we're trying to figure out what Ru actually
[00:02:39] Carmen: is. So we're gonna get into why Ru is a big deal to Cubans, how it all came to happen. Why Bacardi is one of the top sellers worldwide.
What other Cuban rums exist for example, AAC, lube. And what happened there? How did that come about? What does it mean for Cuban style to be Cuban style and who decides that? And also how was rum even born? Where did we even start with that? Of course the answer to that one is sugar because every story with Cuba starts with sugar and shameless plug.
If you haven't already listened to our episode about sugar, we made an entire fantastic comprehensive episode on sugar and its role in Cuba and Cuban history. It is one of our favorites. So pause this, go listen to that and then come back.
[00:03:24] Fryda: So we're going to start our drinking. We're gonna begin with the KU.
Free Cuba, which goes back to a war cry during the Cuban war of independence. We love it. So it's usually served in a tall glass. You can start with an ounce of rum, three ounces of Coca-Cola stir garnish with a lime wedge and just, you know, start sipping.
[00:03:44] Carmen: Pro tip. There was a bar in Manhattan who I will not name because I am famous among the bartending scene in Manhattan for being extremely critical of this bar and not liking it.
But what I will say that they floated their gua with champagne and it was out of this world and I cannot take that away from them. It honestly took it to the next level. So pro tip, if you wanna take this to the next level, put a little champagne at the end and it. Extra. Nice. I wanna bring up that. I think it's weird that we make this drink with Coke because Coke is obviously an American drink and there's a long and dirty history where Cuba is denied it's independence by the us.
And so the fact that one of Cuba's signature drinks is involving Coke. Is a really interesting juxtaposition of imperialism where Cuba is trying to kick it out. But I completely digress. The story starts with the colonialist. The colonialist brings sugar to Cuba in the 15 hundreds and where there is sugar.
There is rum. Why? Because rum is made with a byproduct of sugar production. Let's throw it back, baby. Take
[00:04:50] Fryda: it. Easy history journey. Yes. And so you're in the 16th century and there's native people in Cuba and black people in Cuba who are experimenting with sugar, cane juice as alcohol. And so the native inhabitants were extracting sugar, cane juice using something called una, which is a device that was required to press the very hard sugar cane, cuz it's like such a tough.
Raw material later, they also invented this other ARA called Che, which you can use animals to move it. And it like made the sugar milling more efficient, but all in all these were devices that the native people were using to create sugar cane juice. And that's like a really important. Foundation
[00:05:35] Carmen: that's laid out in 1777.
We start to see news of a raw and strong beverage made out of sugar cane juice that black folk and country folk called DIA today that is actually known as a ante
[00:05:48] Fryda: is a, is a drink that people still drink today. It literally translates to fire water, cuz it's like a strong alcohol that burns as it goes down your throat.
And it is the stepping stone to get to.
[00:06:02] Carmen: The way you get, I awarded out of sugar cane juice is that you fermented. So essentially rum is I Edward that got fancy and went to Harvard.
the process to make rum in its basic form is you extract the sugar cane juice from the sugar cane. You ferment that for a while.
Fermenting means that you just let it sit there with natural yeast and bacteria, and then that essentially poops out the alcohol and then you distill that, which means that you boil it. And the condensation from that liquid that has been fermented that condensation is the actual alcohol. This is your hour Dante.
Then you take that and in order to make it rum you age, And there's a lot of different ways that you can age it, that gives you different flavors. But once you age, the IR Diante, that is when you are looking at the Harvard graduate that we know as Cuban rum or rum. And so. How did we discover that you can make a Diante into rum who had the idea to be like, Hm, let me age this pirate.
Yes. I have to do that in 1672 pirates begin transporting our Diante in barrels. And so this is an. Accident. This was a complete accident. Pirates needed to have alcohol on deck because it's very useful for cleaning and for medical reasons
[00:07:22] Fryda: useful and also their pirates.
[00:07:24] Carmen: Come on. Have you seen every, any pirate movie ever?
Everybody likes a little, a little rum here and there. So
[00:07:31] Fryda: that aged for some time in barrels was. Being called room by young at the time, it sounds a little bit like rum, but has a little more to it. Room BA young it's derived from English slang apparently, and it means clamor or noise, but I
[00:07:50] Carmen: also think it's a really good name because BA young in Spanish is also like a, like a barrel basically.
So it's wrong barrel, literally. It's called, you know, rum barrel and so. Saying that, that is how we got the word rum, but that's the first time that we see anything similar to the word rum where like the earliest that we can go back with that word. So pirates are sailing the high seas where they having little ANGs on deck and fast forward to 1791, something really important happened the Haitian revolution, which greatly changed the Cuban sugar industry.
Not only because it meant that suddenly there was space for Cuba to step in as a major sugar. Producer and exporter, but also because many French slave masters fled Haiti and arrived to Cuba and they brought with them advanced techniques in the production of sugar. This is really important because as you make sugar production more efficient, it means that you have more byproduct, which means that you can make more
[00:08:48] Fryda: rum in order for rum to succeed.
Sugar has to succeed in order for sugar has to succeed. Slavery has to succeed somewhere mm-hmm . And so there were slave masters who were leaving because Haiti wasn't a place for them anymore, but Cuba still was. And so there's this wretched history on our way to industrializing sugar cane and making more and more realm on this note of innovation and industrialization in 1820.
Someone named Fernando started distilling rum in order to achieve a very elegant result. And this created a rum of, uh, so-called higher quality than we had seen in the whole Caribbean.
[00:09:33] Carmen: So to be clear here, the difference between rum and a Dante is not just the aging, obviously that is the procedural difference, but the actual difference between rum and a Dante is the fact that rum is a friendlier, easier to drink spirit than a entente.
Right. You're not. You're not thinking, oh, let me buy some Dante so I can have a little sip after work. No, but you do that with Rome. So this is
[00:09:56] Fryda: only if you got fired only
[00:09:58] Carmen: if that's true that you might do some shots of our Dante, the, the entire production and vision for Ru at this time is to make something that people can just drink.
People can just. Sip. It goes down easy and it enjoyable. It makes it, you know exactly. . So Fred NA is the first to have reached any form of this. We obviously haven't tried his rum, but he has considered one of the first rum masters of Cuba, which this is the whole organization that we will get to. But.
Fernando is important because he laid down the foundation for the granddaddies of rum to come later. Namely ARD,
[00:10:35] Fryda: BAAR the brand, the family, the legacy we're about to get into the behemoth that was and is
[00:10:45] Carmen: McCarthy.
So I hope that you are wrapping up your GU over there because now of course, we have to get into a more legal
[00:10:53] Fryda: about this in real life.
We don't wanna pressure
[00:10:56] Carmen: anyone, no pressure. But, um, if you are not done with your, put it down because we're making mojito now,
before we
[00:11:02] Fryda: get into the mojito, I do wanna say that there was a drink before the mojito called the Drake. There was some Explorer guy named Drake and his whole ship got scurvy and dysentery.
So they had to go to Cuba apparently to get a bunch of herbs, including mint. And they made some. I'm sure nasty drink. That was called the Drake in order to heal them from all of their ailments. And thank God we upgraded from that.
[00:11:27] Carmen: Thank God. . I have a hot take when it comes to the Moji. It is not a mojito.
I'm so sorry, but it is not a mojito. If you do not muddle, if you don't muddle the mint with the sugar, I'm dying because
[00:11:45] Fryda: like people are gonna listen to this and then go to a restaurant and be like, or go to a bar and be like, that's not a mojito. You didn't, that's not a mojito, that's not a mojito. And we'll be like so proud that we made these monsters.
You're welcome. You're welcome.
[00:11:59] Carmen: And I'm sorry to the hospitality industry, but, okay.
[00:12:01] Fryda: Yeah, it's true though, because otherwise you don't really
[00:12:04] Carmen: get the oils releasing from the, from the mint leaves and it doesn't really blend together. So let's get into how you make a mojito. You're going to need mint leaves, freshmen.
You're going to need simple syrup. You're going to need white rum and lime juice club soda. And then a lemon wedge for garnish. My
[00:12:23] Fryda: hot take is that it's gotta be YWE it can't be
[00:12:26] Carmen: some other mint. That, that is also true. I agree with that. Y BWE is mint, but it's a variety of mint that is, there's like SP
[00:12:34] Fryda: Min's one of them SP
[00:12:35] Carmen: min.
Yeah. BWE I don't even know what Y BWE is in English because I've never said it in English. so, uh, go to your local, uh, store and be like, do you have any yet? Some good herb is some good. Herb is the translation for
[00:12:49] Fryda: that. Oh my God. You might get something else. oh, um, but anyway, we do digress here. Carmen, go back to the recipe.
[00:12:56] Carmen: so in order to do this, to make a mojito, you are going to lightly muddle the mint with some simple syrup. You're gonna want half an ounce of simple syrup then. You're going to pour in two ounces of white rum and three fourth ounces of freshly squeezed lime juice. None of that stuff that you get from Umpo from the S you cannot do it with that.
Then you're going to give it a shake and strain it into a tall glass over ice and top with club soda garnish with a SPRI of mint and a lime wedge. Mm,
[00:13:26] Fryda: it is so refreshing. Just even hearing this being
[00:13:30] Carmen: described, the mojito is Hemingway's drink of choice. There are other famous people who really, really enjoyed it.
Like BDA NA king Cole. Juta Gabriel Garcia, Marcus, just to name a few. And it was made popular because it became commercialized at a famous bar called LA, which is a restaurant as well in Havana. It's still there. So if you happen to go to Cuba, you can go visit the birthplace of the mojito SI
[00:13:58] Fryda: mojito. As we begin the story of Bacardi, a really, truly historically
[00:14:03] Carmen: Cuban rum.
I wanna start off by saying that up until now. All of these things that we're talking about, processes and fermenting and aging, all that stuff. We know of these things now to be super official. And we know that they, in a sense are kind of a science because they are measurable, they're quantifiable. And that is how you ensure quality and all that stuff.
But none of that existed during the time of rums inception. Up until this point, we're talking about people who are messing around with questionable liquid, questionable methods. There's no standardization or quality control, and they're serving this stuff and selling it in whatever random. People have lying around, oftentimes with no labels, you just know that you're getting something that people are calling rum and you're like, okay, cool.
I need to drink. Let's go. And so that is Bacardi's major contribution to the rum industry. So the concept of rum being a quote unquote fine delicacy that you could then put in cocktails, as a matter of fact, cocktails is not really a concept that had existed quite yet in the time of the first Bacardi to begin making rum
So we're going really bad. We're going way back. Fadi is the first Bacardi to start making rum. And the one who established Bacardi the brand and his contribution to the rum industry is the most significant because he is the first to start experimenting with things and also documenting it in the pursuit of standardization and in the pursuit of making rum very friendly and palatable for anybody to be able to.
Not just pirates.
[00:15:32] Fryda: He is also really good at building a brand. Fadi is the first Bacardi in Cuba. He was a Kala merchant who moved to Cuba in 1862 and he bought a distillery. He had this bright idea to make rum, um, but knowing his background as a merchant, he also created. A mascot or a brand for his rum.
It was the rum of the mugo, the bat rum. And so. Everyone knew to ask for the rum that had a bat on it. And this was key in the widespread commercialization of his particular brand.
[00:16:10] Carmen: Now you can feel better every time you go to the store buying a bottle of wine and you don't really know anything about wine, but you're like this label's nice.
He started that. You're welcome. so back RDI actually partnered up with bud, which I don't know if that's how you say that he was a French confectioner and. At the time they were responding to a call that the Spanish crown had put out for a pure Cuban spirit. This is during the time of Spanish control.
So of course they're calling the shot and they were at the time, a bunch of different books on rum with different approaches, but. Everything was all over the place. And Fado took the initiative towards specializing in this product. And specifically saying, we're gonna put a label on this. It's gonna have a bat because guess who's buying this stuff.
People who are illiterate. Of course, he knew that. So he's not writing something on it. He put a literal picture of a bat. He is moving towards making the process of making more efficient. Why is that important? Because that is the only way that you can scale. And that's really, really important because that is the only way that you can grow and then make more money and, uh, expand worldwide hot take bug.
RDI is the original Mr. Worldwide, but don't tell, don't tell that to pit bull .
[00:17:20] Fryda: If any of you like text pickle on the regular Bacardi was also the. Alcohol company to brand out cocktail recipes. So in order to make, let's say a Bacardi di you have to use Bacardi rum. And so it was like using like various levels of enforcement to actually write this into law in 1936.
Which is way way in the future. They eventually won a consumer protection case in the New York Supreme court to state that a Bacardi cocktail must be made with Bacardi rum. And so while that's in the future, FA lays the foundation for this kind of like really strict branding process, hashtag priorities, which is like, kind of intense when you think about it.
Like mm-hmm ,
[00:18:05] Carmen: but it's also kind of cool that Bacardi. First quoted spirit in any bartending manual ever. So like Bacardi is the first name that ever appears when someone is telling you, Hey, you'd make this drink using rum, lime juice and simple syrup cannot be any rum. It has to be Bacardi. And it's not just saying that, oh, this is a Bacardi cocktail.
It's saying, this is how you make this. Everywhere. Let's
[00:18:29] Fryda: go deep enough to actually talk about the product because not only was the brand a really successful part of Bacardi's initiatives, but the actual product and the, the refinement of this process, like accounted for part of the success. Like the rums gotta be good.
Right, right.
[00:18:46] Carmen: And it needs to be good every time. And you need to be able to trust that brand loyalty is about establishing trust with your customers. And that's like, sounds like. Sounds like marketing mumbo jumbo now because we hear that stuff. So
[00:18:56] Fryda: now I feel like hashtag hashtag . Yeah, it
[00:18:59] Carmen: sounds like marketing mumbo jumbo now, but at the time this was a, this was a novel concept.
People did not know about that stuff. They have other priorities. He wasn't
[00:19:06] Fryda: on Instagram trying funny person to say this, you know, or like the billionth person to say this on Instagram.
[00:19:11] Carmen: yeah. So fuck bonk, decide that he's gonna start making rum and that his priorities are number one, branding, number two, making a rum that is consistent and palatable to everybody.
And. Three being able to standardize and make this process as efficient as possible so that he can scale this man has big, big plans. So
[00:19:31] Fryda: Ricardi really refined the process for rum making. We're going to go into three different steps where he particularly made some strides in refining the process, fermentation, distillation and aging.
So in terms of fermentation, the innovation that Bacardi made. Picardi was actually the first to use a quick fermenting cognac type east for rum. And so cognac has a French influence. Probably B is somewhat responsible. The quickness of the fermentation is specific to Cuban rum. There are other rums that have a really long fermentation process and they make a funer rum.
That is like, definitely not.
[00:20:07] Carmen: On the distillation front, even though this is a little bit further into the future, I wanna say that the Bacardi's retired, the old pot still, the company had been using this for 50 years, and this is important because they replaced it with a modern coffee still. And this is a vertical column that aids.
In making the process more efficient and increasing the yield of the condensation. And this is important because it means that in the distillation process, you are able to process larger quantities of fermented molasses in a much more efficient way. And back idea is the first to really implement this after their president.
En schwag first saw one demonstrated in 1889 in an exhibition in Paris, the Baard these were like, yep. That thing is going to increase our output, sign us up. So they start using this still and they also start implementing charcoal filtration word on the street. Is that fuck ARD was a total Germa fold.
So when charcoal filtration was presented as a possible option, he was. Again, sign us up. It's important to note that during this time charcoal filtration is being used in Tennessee whiskey and in vodka making. So the Bacardi's did not invent this. They simply brought it to the process of rum making Tennessee whiskey.
[00:21:23] Fryda: So aging is the last. Uh, innovation that we found that was really key to making this like Cuban style rum that Bacardi made. He was the first to use American white Oak casks for rum. I impart a specific flavor, has a certain porosity. It's a specific kind of wood to use for your rum making process. Like, I don't know that where the Pirate's doing that.
[00:21:47] Carmen: Definitely not. When I first started learning all about run making. I believe that aging was this more complicated process, that involved more stuff. And, you know, you see aged on a label and you're like, wow, that must be amazing, right? Because they make it gold and gilded and all this stuff. But a actually all you do to age something is you put it in a vessel of some sort, and then you let it sit there.
Whether it's aged a week or 20 years, doesn't matter, it's still considered aged. The process of aging is what gives rum the color. Of Amber or that kind of honey color. And so when you're talking about light rum versus dark rum, you're talking about the way it was aged and not necessarily anything else.
It's not really so much about flavor. The actual color doesn't inform the flavor, but the thing that gave it, the color is what informs the flavor. So the barrels that you're using versus for example, you can also age in ceramic containers and that would be a different color
[00:22:42] Fryda: patience. You have to have patience in order to.
That's the complicated that's, that's less patients and resources cuz you gotta like have like a big warehouse and be like, well, we're just gonna let these things sit for a while and um, I'm not gonna make any money yet. so Bacardi is out here making specific innovations that distinguish Cuban style, Bacardi style rum.
They. Also really are successful at scaling and expanding their product and being opportunistic and taking advantages of moments like prohibition. In the early 19 hundreds, we have prohibition in the us. People can't have alcohol, not legally in the us and people are going to Cuba to drink. And so Bacardi.
Made sure to meet the demand during this
[00:23:30] Carmen: time. And to be clear, it wasn't that Bakar, they saw this happening and anticipated the demand. It was more like because of this prohibition, the culture of bartending and the culture of speakeasy bars and that sort of wanky kind of at. Beer essentially got imported to Cuba because people still wanna party and people still want to drink.
So lots of flights are now going directly to Cuba from Miami daily, from key west, even from the Northeast. And even from the Midwest, everyone is saying, well, we can't drink at home. We're gonna go to Cuba to go drink. And that's when bartenders start immigrating to Cuba. That's when the term, the Paris of the Caribbean.
Referring to Cuba and Havana. That's when that term gets coined. And that's really big because that's how you end up with Bacardi being a household name and not just a rum that exists in Cub.
[00:24:16] Fryda: So Bacardi sets up distilleries outside of Cuba. They set some up in Mexico, in Puerto Rico. And so they're growing and becoming a multinational company.
They're actually Cuba's first multinational
[00:24:28] Carmen: company. And I wanna say that a lot of the work that Bacardi has been doing up until this point makes it PO like possible to do that. Not only because of the logistics of it, but also because you need to be able. Offer a product to a customer that you don't know it's different when you're selling to your neighbor.
And you're like, oh, sorry, this batch didn't come out as good. Like that's okay. Like that's probably fine. But if you're selling to somebody that you don't know who is buying your product for the product, then you need to ensure quality. And so all of this stuff amounts to something, all of this stuff amounts to being able to meet that demand, not just logistically, but also from a quality perspective.
And so
[00:25:01] Fryda: we've got consistent branding, a streamlined process, a distinguishable process, a way to scale a lot of money coming through marketing standardization, quality control, and all of that. That is what Bacardi managed to
[00:25:14] Carmen: achieve. We talk a lot about FAO Wadi, but. Like I said, this is a long lineage of Bacardi's and there are many of them, the Bacardi family is important in the history of Cuba.
Not only because they're rum, makers and Bacardi is the most famous rum to come out of Cuba, but also because they were highly instrumental in laying down the groundwork or Cuban independence, and also after Cuban independence and menial Bacardi, who is actually coming at generation after Fado Bacardi, he was kind of a flower child and was very into connecting with Diana heritage.
He took the side of the mom BSIS during the war of independence, he helped lead and organize and was BFFs with Antonio ma sale. And also with Jose Martin. So you might ask yourself, why would this guy side with people who are fighting for Cuban independence? I mean, fine. He's a business owner in Cuba, but there were very practical reasons for why the Bacardi family would be interested in Cuban.
I. Namely, they would be able to avoid tariffs and they were getting tax left. And right first from the Spanish, then from the us everywhere, they were turning, they were facing a lot of expensive decisions in order to keep running their rum business. And ultimately we have established that the Bacardi's are very skilled people in business.
And also in politics, when
[00:26:33] Fryda: I hear these stories, it sounds like a Emilio, the flower child was like really into. Really into supporting the war of independence for like emotional and related reasons. And he was like connected with all of these change makers, but then maybe the, the older guys were probably like, and this is good for business too.
I'm making assumptions. But it's interesting to think about them as like a political family. It would be good to see like a se success style show, but it'd be all about Bacardi. Mm . Right. But anyway, let's, uh, if anyone hears that and, uh, has the resources, we have a pitch. You're welcome. You're welcome to me.
There's a lot of companies, people popping up making rum. It's Cuba, you make rum, but there's another huge, huge player in the space that enters a bit later around prohibition time. And it's the family who makes Havana Lu and they're a drama Lama of their own. Like the story of them is a soap opera. It is, it is.
They actually
[00:27:36] Carmen: made it into a show it's called AMPA and it's modeled after sleep no more in New York. It's excellent. It's the story of the Cheva family and we should totally get into it. Let's start with
[00:27:45] Fryda: that story. So the Cheva family. Enters a picture in terms of like an industrial company in 1879, Ava industries is founded in gardens and it's a distillery, but it's also making candy.
It's making fuel. They're like all over the place. They're even making fuel for Cuba. During world war II, they really pop in as Ru makers when prohibition ends. So in 1935, they created Havana. It was actually targeting the us market, which makes a lot of sense. Cause it's like Havana club is English. It's the first rum to be double aged, which is cute and cool.
[00:28:23] Carmen: Cuban rum is known to be the most elegant style rum and all that really means when it comes. To the rum community is that anybody can pick it up and be like, oh, this is nice. It's not anything more special than that. There are plenty of rums that are way more flavorful that are way more funky, way more interesting nuance.
All of these other things. but Cuban rum specifically, and the rum that Bacardi and that theta Chi family are making are a very easy Sy bowl, mixable rum. And I just wanted to say that because the way that you get at that is by aging and blending, which we have established that the chuva family contributed the double aged mechanism or the double aged process.
[00:29:12] Fryda: Yes. And, uh, it's about time for another drink. Another smooth drink, the dike dike. It was created during the, the war of independence and then reborn in El Florida DETA bar in Havana. Of course, Ernest Hemingway was into it. Cuz Ernest Hemingway was into like a lot of alcohol and he loved all these drinks.
Honestly,
[00:29:36] Carmen: I have a confession to make. Okay. Yeah. What you're gonna check. You're gonna check me and take my Cuban card right now. But for a long time I thought that the di was the like classic frozen drink that you would make like with strawberry and stuff that you can get at. What is it mango Manny's and stuff.
Um,
[00:29:52] Fryda: I mean, but it's not, it's not your fault. I totally get it because the ditty that we were having in Miami is nothing like the ditty that was supposedly invented in 1898 in the town of Ty on the tip of Cuba, by an American mining engineer named Jennings Cox. And so, first of all, this was made by an American Carmen.
Your Cubin card is not taken away. This was made by an American and, and it was later on introduced to the us. A decade later by a us Navy medical officer. So like, it is a drink that is like steeped in Americanism, but definitely what's made in Cuba and enjoyed in Cuba. You know, by the military and stuff, let's make the Ty add two ounces of light rum, an ounce of lime juice, freshly squeezed and some sugar, and add it to a shaker with ice.
And you shake until well chilled strain garnish with a lime twist. Enjoy
[00:30:47] Carmen: that's it. Another note about the diabetes is that it actually also has a predecessor, which is can, Andra is essentially the exact same thing. But with honey, Like actual dissolved honey and not Ru. It is said that Dennings Cox was an engineer who had been sent to Cuba to work on developing minds in this area.
And he was hosting some of his American friends and he decided that he was going to serve a very refreshing drink Ofra while they were hanging out on the beach DIY beach. And instead of using our dent. Which is what you use in conjunction. He used rum and he didn't have honey. So next thing you know, the de is born.
[00:31:31] Fryda: I feel like the more that I heard the story, the more I'm like, okay, so. This guy Jenning's Cox went and took like a traditional drink that the Cubans were making during their fight for independence called NCH, replaced a few of the ingredients. And then all of his American friends were like, it's the di we're in the.
[00:31:53] Carmen: what could be more Cuban than some American dude showing up and being like, I'm gonna take this from me and I'm gonna make money from it. Actually. I don't know if you ever made money from that, but anyway,
[00:32:03] Fryda: uh, hopefully you've started drinking this one because we're gonna get into, uh, fi Castro and shit.
We. Always have to take a look at how the revolution impacts. Like literally every single topic we talk about that's Cuban,
[00:32:14] Carmen: he came into power and then he was just like all of the people that are doing business by yourselves, Uhuh, none of that. We're gonna nationalize all of this stuff. And by that we mean Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic.
Cuz that's where everybody went.
[00:32:28] Fryda: Yes. After the revolution Bacardi, they left with their formula to Puerto Rico. Where they fortunately already had factories. So they could just like pretty much uninterrupted continue their global production. And that, that is some business sense right there to, to survive a revolution AANA club in contrast kind of loses a lot so here begins the major, major drama of Havana club.
The Cuban regime nationalizes the factory, but Ram. Stays to run his factories, even though they have been entirely taken over years later, he ends up getting threatened to either join the communist regime or leave entirely. He leaves to Miami loses all of his money. The factories were not his for a couple of years already and they lose that.
Then in 1973. Coincidentally, their family lawyer gets imprisoned. And that's the same time when their trademark for Havana club lapses, the Cuban government SWOS in a couple years later, and in the form of Cuba export company, they register for that same trademark Havana club and they registered the trademark in the.
Even though they can't even sell to the us. So you can tell that there's a scheme brewing, they begin selling AANA club domestically. They also sell a ton of other rums under a bunch of brand names, but they sell AANA club domestically in Cuba. But then when. The collapse of the us, Sr happens in 1991. The Cuban government enters into an agreement with this French maker called porno Ricard.
And they begin exporting Havana club outside of the country. And then like this family is like, I'm seeing Havana club being sold to Europe and elsewhere, and it's their brand and it's their rum, which is wild. And so
[00:34:26] Carmen: now we have three versions of AANA. Yeah, we have in Cuba AANA group, which is what I always grew up hearing is the real one.
You know, it's kind of like one of those situations of like, will the real CLU please stand up. Then there's the one that the Cuban government alongside per recard exports called AANA group. And then to make things a little more complicated. Bacardi also sells AANA clue. How did that happen? In 1994? The Ava family formed an Alliance with Baard D even though they were once in competition with each other and they reached an agreement and now Baard D sells AANA clue.
I think that they sold them a recipe. I don't know if it's the recipe, but they sold them a, they sold
[00:35:14] Fryda: them, their family recipe. It's the same
[00:35:16] Carmen: recipe. So then which one is, it's the family recipe, which is the authentic one, then.
[00:35:20] Fryda: The Chiala family says, it's the one the Bacardi makes.
[00:35:23] Carmen: Oh, wow. Interesting.
[00:35:25] Fryda: Yeah, the, the, the Cuban regime can use whatever name it wants to.
[00:35:28] Carmen: Oh, wow. Okay. So then in that case, it was always told to me wrong. I, I always thought that the one in the Cuba is the real one, but according to the arch Chiala family, they actually gave their recipe to Bacardi in 1994. And now that's the real. So congratulations. If you are in the us and you want to go by AANA group, you are getting the real deal, according to the people who actually make it.
And also you're not supporting communism because the Bacardi family is making it. And now they're operating out of Puerto Rico. So enjoy. Was
[00:35:56] Fryda: this not a drama. There's still like some sort of fight going on about the event club patent and all of that, but it ends up being this like huge clash. It's like a clash between communists produced rum by the Cuban regime and capitalists produce rum by like a rum behemoth, Bacardi.
Both of them are monster. Um, and they compete against each other in this story of rum. So like, what is Cuban rum as a result like? Right. Is it the Cuban rum that's produced within Cuba today? That's mostly consumed domestically and sometimes exported to Europe. Is it the recipes from like centuries ago?
Uh, that have just been reprised recently in the. It's hard to say.
[00:36:44] Carmen: Well, of course, because the Cuban government likes to put their stamp of approval on whatever they deem to be Cuban. They actually have established an institution called the mys and it's super exclusive. And it's basically, it's just eight people.
That's ridiculous.
[00:37:03] Fryda: I know it's the Illuminati of rum. It is the
[00:37:05] Carmen: Illuminati of rum. I imagine that when they, like, one of them dies or something, they do one of those Pope rituals where they all get together in some remote location and contemplate on who the next one is going to get is going to be . Yeah.
And they just. Side on who the next my is. Why do Cuban people continue to feel the desire to exert authority over what they consider to be Cuban? It might have something to do with the fact that everybody and their mothers keeps putting their hands all over them and then calling it like something else.
So I feel like maybe the Cuban people have some innate desire to exert agency in their own narrative. So what do the Matra tornadoes even. They've
[00:37:47] Fryda: written out like this huge document that specifies exactly what is considered rum, Cuban, rum, and exactly what isn't, here's a quote from it. The use of sense aroma's artificial additives, lacerations and extracts is totally prohibited, even if it is not intended to modify the aroma and flavor.
And this is just one example of the things that according to the, my tornado are not allowed in Cuban rum. And so. Rum cannot be made outside of Cuba. Rum has to be entirely focused on elegance and in order to create that elegant rum rum has to be
[00:38:24] Carmen: blended. And that's kind of important to note because obviously there are other people in Cuba making rum, as we have said, where there is sugar, there is rum and those are the people that are not.
Meeting those requirements, but they're still Cuban and they're still making their own rum. They don't get to call their rum Cuban rum as per the Myro needles. And actually I wanted to take this time to also talk about a few other rums that are Cuban, that we haven't gotten into because they just don't have the same long history of drama Lamas, but are still worth mentioning Mato, which actually operates out of Dominican Republic.
Was actually born in Cuba. And they're also a big name that you should know about also quite delicious. Some domestic rums that are post communist revolution are
which I love the name of that. It literally means that your legs are crossed, like, cause you're drunk because you're drunk. Um, And those are just a few other names that if you're in Cuba and you see them go ahead and taste them because they're also Cuban and they may or may not actually be complying with the Rome Matras, but either way we wanted you to know about them.
I actually personally think that a more useful way to think about rum is to describe where it comes from and it's history, because that will actually tell you a little bit more about its flavors and what was prioritized when it came to the design of that spirit. Not so much whether it's light or. So for example, rum from Barbados, Jamaica, and Guana, all former British colonies are known to be molasses based rums.
And those will be a little bit more similar in flavor, even though there's many, many differences rum from Barbados, for example, tends to be a little bit more smoother and a little bit more akin to Cub in style. Whereas rum from Jamaica can be really funky and kind of in your face, if you already are into Ru and you have a taste for it, you might enjoy the nuance of that.
You might be able to appreciate that a little bit more French territories like Martin. Guadalupe are known for their Ruco made from freshly pressed sugar, cane juice. And they're also column distilled. These are kind of grassy vegetable flavors that are really, really recognizable. And in Spanish colonies like Cuban, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic rums are known to be specifically molasses based column distilled.
Charcoal infiltrated ROS, which are very smooth, very elegant. As we have said,
[00:40:36] Fryda: rum describes the conditions of the land and the conditions of the history, the conditions of the colonizers and, and the experiments that went on within each country to make the style of rum that they make. It would be so nice to go on a tasting and try all these different kinds of rums.
And I like identify what kind of changes were made along the way. And at the end of it, You would end up super clean, squeaky clean because, oh my
[00:41:06] Carmen: God, I was supposed to be like, where are you going with this?
[00:41:09] Fryda: I'm trying so hard to make it to the KMO our, one of our most disgusting KMOS
[00:41:15] Carmen: Rato. That means there is not a single drunk with parasites, because like why?
Because the alcohol
[00:41:21] Fryda: kills it all. You drink all that alcohol
[00:41:25] Carmen: oh my God. Why are we like this? I feel like this is something I would say to my parents when they're like a TA, I would be like, no
[00:41:35] Fryda: surgeon. General's warning alcohol. It's poison. So guys, no one go drinking too much alcohol because there are medicines for your parasites, actual medicine, actual medicine.
this is just on de Cho. Okay. Do not take it seriously.
[00:41:52] Carmen: A big shout to Manuel Garcia. Sova. Who very kindly sat down with me and answered a bunch of rum questions over some decorates. One night, he is a rum expert that I've had the pleasure of knowing. And I also wanna give a big shout out to cocktail wonk.
That's a blog that is super comprehensive in rum, not just Cuban rum. If you enjoyed learning about Cuban rum though, and you wanna learn more about all of the other kinds of runs, I highly recommend that you check out cocktail walks blog, because it is. Full of juicy stories and great information on rum.
Thank you so much for
[00:42:27] Fryda: listening to this episode. We hope you learned some stuff about rum, about Cuban rum, and we hope you're not too drunk. Sorry. Yeah, we're so sorry. Go to sleep. Let's take a shot. Go to sleep now. Um, me,
[00:42:38] Carmen: I'm sorry if you're drunk two seconds later, let's take a shot.
[00:42:42] Fryda: So thank you as well to our patrons.
Andy, Elena, Catalina, Lauren Gianni, VI, Christine D Derek Ryan, Jose Susans, Catherine Lauren. Kay. Amoy Kristin, Sarah got Jason, Josh, Yvette Keis. And Jesse couldn't do this without you. We love you. Yes. Make sure to check us out on social media. We are at ticket, easy pod. You can email us, take it easy. Pod gmail.com.
Check out merch, or just look at our website at take it easy. pod.com.
[00:43:11] Carmen: Take it easy.
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