Thursday, August 10, 2006

by Angus MacSwan

MIAMI, USA (Reuters): With the cocktail-drinking classes thirsty for mojitos and daiquiris, a new front has opened up in a Cuban rum war that has its roots in the ailing Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.

The Bacardi liquor company this week will begin selling its Havana Club brand in the United States after winning a 10-year trademark dispute with Cuba and the French firm Pernod Ricard.

But Pernod Ricard, whose own Havana Club rum is popular in Europe and Havana tourist spots but is banned in the United States, said it still owns the name Havana Club and will appeal U.S. patent authorities' ruling that Cuba's trademark registration had expired.

This latest phase of a long-running fight that epitomizes the tussle between Cuba's Communist government and exiles across the Florida Straits arose just as Castro's long rule over the island appears to be waning.

The 79-year-old leader handed power temporarily to his brother Raul Castro on July 31 after abdominal surgery.

Bacardi's Havana Club is based on the original 1935 recipe by the Arechabala family, who produced it in Cuba until their business was seized by Castro's government in 1960.

Bacardi, owned by a Cuban exile family, bought the brand from the Arechabalas in the 1990s. The new rum is made in Puerto Rico.

In the meantime a joint venture between Cuban state company Cubaexport and Pernod Ricard has sold Havana Club-branded rum made in Cuba in countries outside the United States.

MACHINE GUN TO HEAD

Cuba says it obtained the Havana Club brand in 1976 after the patent lapsed. U.S. courts ruled the Cuban-French venture had no rights to it in the United States and U.S. patent authorities last week said Cuba's trademark registration had expired.

Ramon Arechabala, former sales manager for his family's firm, and now aged 70, recalled the day on Jan. 1, 1960, when the authorities took over the distillery in Cardenas.

"Che Guevara's bodyguards came over and said 'You've got to get the hell out of here.' They pulled out machine guns and put one to my head," he told Reuters.

He left Cuba about a month later, never to return.

Bacardi's decision to sell its Havana Club rum in the United States takes place at a time of unease in Cuba because of Castro's illness.

"That's just coincidence," Bacardi USA vice-president John Gomez told Reuters. "This is something we've been planning for some time."

Miami-based Bacardi USA's marketing campaign will evoke exotic pre-revolutionary Havana, when the city was a lusty tropical playground for gamblers, tourists and celebrities.

"It recalls the sultry high life of yesteryear in Havana," Gomez told Reuters.

For the time being, the Havana Club rum drunk in Havana's Hotel Nacional and bars such as the Floridita will be Pernod Ricard's.

Pernod Ricard communications head Francisco De La Vega said of the Bacardi version. "It is not a Cuban product. That is not fair and is misleading to the consumer."

The Pernod brand used only Cuban sugar cane and was produced by master blenders in Cuba, he told Reuters from Paris.

Boosted by a trend for all things Cuban, sales have gone from the 300,000 cases in 1994 to an expected 2.4 million cases in 2006, despite having no access to the U.S. market.

"What makes Bacardi annoyed is that we have had a lot of success. They feel threatened that when the embargo ends, we will be able to sell in the United States," he said.

  Most popular articles: viewed, printed and e-mailed

  Printable version