Bacardi Trivia | 40 facts about the famous rum

«Bacardi Limited» is one of the largest privately held, family-owned spirits companies in the world.

Let’s find out more about it!

1. Bacardi Limited is one of the largest privately held, family-owned spirits companies in the world.
2. It is originally known for its eponymous Bacardi white rum, it now has a portfolio of more than 200 brands and labels.
3. It was founded in Cuba in 1862.
4. It is family-owned for seven generations.
5. Bacardi Limited employs more than 7,000 people with sales in approximately 170 countries.
6. Bacardi Limited is the group of companies as a whole and includes Bacardi International Limited.
7. Bacardi Limited is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.
8. It has a board of directors led by the original founder’s great-great grandson, Facundo L. Bacardí, the chairman of the board.
9. Spain had set up an outpost in Santiago de Cuba in the early 19^th Century. And one Catalonian family decided to try to make its fortune there, and we ended up in having… Bacardi!
10. Specifically, Facundo Bacardi Masso, youngest of four sons of a Catalonian stonemason. Masso emigrated to Cuba in 1830 and set up shop. Over the years he became known as “Don Facundo,” owing to his serious, Don-like manner.
11. Facundo married Amalia Moreau, and her wealth would end up helping Bacardi fund his business ventures over the years.
12. And those business ventures would be several, because as it turns out the Bacardis were in for some tribulation.
13. The Caribbean experienced waves of cholera pandemics in the 19^th Century, and Cuba was among the suffering countries.
14. One such wave, which lasted from 1850 to 1856 and took two of their children, gave the Bacardi family yet more incentive to leave Cuba.
15. In the summer of 1852, earthquakes hit Santiago de Cuba, at least one of which averaged 6 on the Richter scale. The city was nearly destroyed, along with it the aspirations of Bacardi.
16. The Bacardi family left Cuba, but not permanently. After the earthquake and cholera outbreaks, Facundo thought it wise to return home to Catalonia for a time.
17. They returned after a few years, at which point Facundo started toying with distillation.
18. It was no surprise as it was basically developed as a “trash” product- in the sense that 17^th Century sugar producers were beset with the problem of leftover molasses.
19. In fact, they used to dump it in the ocean (no doubt confusing a hell of a lot of fish) before somebody figured out how to ferment it.
20. A businessman looking for a hook, Bacardi and partner José León Boutellier toyed around with the process of rum distillation, incorporating the use of new white oak for aging, charcoal filtering (which Jack Daniels does, too), and a proprietary yeast strain that Bacardi uses to this day.
21. They both use the bat as a central symbol.
22. For Wayne, it means protecting Gotham. For the Bacardi family, the fruit bats living in the rafters of their first distillery were a sign of good luck. There’s been a bat on the bottle ever since.
23. Bacardi drinks are not easily found in Cuba today.
24. The main brand of rum in Cuba is Havana Club, produced by a company that was confiscated and nationalized by the government following the revolution.
25. Bacardi later bought the brand from the original owners, the Arechabala family.
26. The Cuban government, in partnership with the French company Pernod Ricard, sells its Havana Club products internationally, except in the United States and its territories.
27. Bacardi created the Real Havana Club rum based on the original recipe from the Arechabala family, manufactures it in Puerto Rico, and sells it in the United States.
28. Bacardi continues to fight in the courts, attempting to legalize their own Havana Club trademark outside the United States.
29. Bacardi was once the world’s best selling rum. More specifically in 2014.
30. It was overtaken by McDowell’s (which, alas, has nothing to do with the fast food chain from Coming to America). McDowell’s is an Indian rum.
31. Bacardi Limited has made numerous acquisitions to diversify away from the eponymous Bacardi rum brand.
32. In 1993, Bacardi merged with Martini & Rossi, the Italian producer of Martini vermouth and sparkling wines, creating the Bacardi-Martini group.
33. In 1998, the company acquired Dewar’s scotch, including Royal Brackla and Bombay Sapphire gin from Diageo for $2 billion.
34. Bacardi acquired the Cazadores tequila brand in 2002 and in 2004 purchased Grey Goose, a French-made vodka, from Sidney Frank for $2 billion. In 2006 Bacardi Limited purchased New Zealand vodka brand 42 Below.
35. In 2018, Bacardi Limited purchased tequila manufacturer Patrón for $5.1 billion.
36. Other associated brands include the Real Havana Club, Drambuie Scotch whisky liqueur, DiSaronno Amaretto, Eristoff vodka, Cazadores Tequila, B&B and Bénédictine liqueurs.
37. In his article “The Old Man and the Daiquiri”, Wayne Curtis writes about how Hemingway’s “home bar also held a bottle of Bacardi rum”. Hemingway wrote in Islands in the Stream, “…this frozen daiquirí, so well beaten as it is, looks like the sea where the wave falls away from the bow of a ship when she is doing thirty knots.”
38. Since the creation of the rum brand in 1862, Bacardi remains the world’s most awarded rum, with hundreds of medals awarded for quality and taste.
39. Emblems of gold medals and the Spanish Coat of Arms awarded during the formative years of the business appear on the bottle.
40. Bacardi rums have been entered for a number of international spirit ratings awards.