• Submitted by: admin
• Local
• 10 / 09 / 2006

By Gary Marx.

Long after rum-swigging pirates terrorized the Caribbean, a different tale of alleged piracy is entangling two nations, two powerhouse liquor companies and a pair of families that fled Cuba after the 1959 revolution.

The treasure in the dispute is rights to the label of Havana Club, a rum famed for its smooth sipping pleasure that is produced at a distillery in this coastal town. Its sales have soared during the last decade even though the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba prevented rum connoisseurs from enjoying it on American soil. Now a new rum with the same name has begun appearing on liquor store shelves and in upscale bars and eateries in the U.S. But it's not from Cuba.

In August, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office refused to renew the Havana Club trademark held by a Cuban government company that has partnered with the French liquor giant Pernod Ricard to produce and sell Havana Club everywhere but the U.S.

That decision has allowed Bacardi Ltd., one of the world's largest liquor companies, to begin marketing its own brand of Havana Club, which so far is being sold only in Florida.

Cuban officials say the patent office ruling is an illegal attempt by U.S. authorities to steal a brand long associated with this Caribbean nation.

"Florida consumers are being tricked," Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said. "It's a real white-collar theft."

In addition to appealing the patent office ruling, Pernod Ricard has filed suit in U.S. federal court in an attempt to force Bacardi to pull its version of Havana Club from the shelves.

"Bacardi owns the rights to Havana Club, and Bacardi will vigorously defend its rights to Havana Club," said John Gomez, vice president and group marketing director for Bacardi.



Deceptive practice?

The lawsuit alleges Bacardi is deceiving Americans into believing the product is Cuban when, in fact, it is made in Puerto Rico. Bacardi counters that the silver-and-black label adorning its new brand clearly states it is "Puerto Rican Rum."

The battle illustrates the wide-ranging nature of U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba. The patent office ruling came after the U.S. State Department advised the agency that renewing Cuba's trademark would be "inconsistent with U.S. policy," according to a letter sent by U.S. authorities to Pernod Ricard.

"The Bush administration has been very clear that denying resources to the Castro government will lead to political change in Cuba, although most evidence points to the contrary," said Daniel Erikson, director of Caribbean programs at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy group.

"Havana Club is extremely important symbolically to Cuba," he said. "It's on par with cigars as one of Cuba's most recognized exports."

Rum, which is made from sugar cane, is a staple here--sipped straight up or used to make mojitos, daiquiris or other cocktails. Rum is even offered to the deities in Santeria.

It was Facundo Bacardi who founded Cuba's first modern distillery in 1862 and pioneered techniques for producing what now is Cuba's famous light-bodied rum. Sixteen years later, a Basque immigrant named Jose Arechabala built a rum distillery with a distinctive, English-looking clock tower in the coastal town of Cardenas.



Havana Club is born

The Arechabala clan introduced Havana Club in 1935 and continued production until Fidel Castro's troops seized the distillery in 1960. Ramon Arechabala, 70, Jose's great-grandson and a sales manager, recalled that when Cuban forces first occupied the facility, a commander told him: "I'm going to put a bullet in your head unless you get out of here."

Arechabala said he was briefly jailed and then fled Cuba, eventually settling in South Florida.

Unlike the Bacardis, who rebuilt their rum empire from their new headquarters in Bermuda, Arechabala's extended family never had the money to return to the business, he said.

But Erich Ramos, a guide at the Havana Club museum in Havana, said the Arechabala distillery was bankrupt at the time of nationalization.

The Arechabalas allowed their Havana Club trademark in the U.S. to lapse in 1973, and the Cuban government quickly registered it.

Soon after, Cuba began producing Havana Club for the Cuban market and for export to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc. They used the newly expanded Santa Cruz distillery, which dates to 1919 and once supplied bootleg alcohol to Al Capone and other gangsters, residents say.

It was only after Pernod Ricard signed a partnership agreement with Cuba in 1993 that Havana Club sales took off, mainly in Europe, Canada and Mexico.

While Bacardi said initial sales of its rival Havana Club rum are brisk, Pernod Ricard and Cuba stand to lose little in the short term because U.S. trade sanctions prohibit them from selling their brand in America. But the long-term financial stakes are huge if U.S. sanctions are lifted.

The U.S. represents 40 percent of the world rum market. Bacardi dominated U.S. rum sales long before its limited rollout of Havana Club.

"They are very afraid that we can come in one day in the States and compete with them," said Philippe Coutin, a Pernod Ricard executive who until recently headed the company's Cuba operations.

Coutin said the trademark ruling was but one skirmish in a dispute that will be "very, very long."



`2 very different rums'

Rum lovers also may have a say in whose product comes out on top. Edward Hamilton, a Chicago-based spirits expert who has written four books on rum, said he did a taste test of the two brands of Havana Club last week.

Hamilton described Pernod Ricard's Havana Club rum that is aged three years as "light and dry and with slight citrus flavor." Bacardi's brand, he said, has a "viscous quality with a vanilla finish."

"They are two very different rums," he said. "I'd prefer to drink the Cuban one."

Still, Ramon Arechabala said he is "as happy as I could be" that Bacardi is producing Havana Club rum for American consumers.

Arechabala said his family sold the original recipe of Havana Club to Bacardi for an undisclosed sum and he now has realized a dream of being able to "sit in my back yard [in Miami] and sip Havana Club."

"It tastes like the one we used to make, even better," he said.

But residents of Santa Cruz del Norte say the essence of rum-making is more sublime than passing on a recipe.

Angel Ribot, a town historian who spent 20 years working at the local distillery, said Santa Cruz's unique climate--the temperature, the sea breeze, the humidity and the quality of the soil--contributes to Havana Club's special flavor.

"There is no place else where these conditions are exactly the same as here," said Ribot. "The rum Bacardi called Havana Club might be good, but it's not our Havana Club. Ours is the best in the world."

Source: Chicago Tribune