Bacardi and the Long Battle for Cuba by Ted Gjelten

The story of the Bacardi family is a great one, and if I hadn't been getting ready to go to Cuba, I would have passed right over this book. I have been musing about why Cuba became the land of newly created culture that it has spread to the world, and one of the reasons might be found in the Bacardi clan. They were a family that had fierce loyalties--to Cuba, to their family, and to independence. The last half of the book is about how while they supported revolution in Cuba, they did not support communism, and the family had to leave Cuba, which embittered that generation.

What did they do that was so ground breaking? It was simple and brilliant. They took the technique that was being used to produce vodka, whereby the distillation was run through a charcoal filter to take off the rough edges, and they applied it to rum. And it worked like a charm--the rum they produced quickly became wildly popular, known as the best. And they were able to produce the same quality and flavor again and again. That sort of quality control was not known in rum production and they managed to do it and do it well. The family was entirely hands-on in their approach to their factories--they visited the factories and were concerned with the working conditions and the lives of their workers. Even at a time when it was not the culture to do so. They had some luck in the whole unhappy unraveling of Cuba, in that they had expanded outside the country, and therefore had a business when the whole business climate there imploded. Great saga.