Havana’s Rum Museum Celebrated its Fourth Birthday

The Havana Club Rum Museum of the Cuban capital, home to the world’s fourth bestselling spirit distilled by Pernod Ricard, hailed its fourth anniversary this weekend with a big bash full of liquor and good Cuban music.

Museum director Regla Jimenez congratulated travel agencies and other preferential customers of this institution that came into being under the auspices of Havana Club International (HCI), a merger of local distillery Cuba Ron and France-based firm Pernod Ricard.

Both companies, that came together in 1993 in an effort to beef up the presence of Havana Club in the world market, came up with the idea of opening a Rum Museum in Havana and another one in Santiago de Cuba.

Housed in an old-timed colonial mansion formerly owned by the Count of Mortera and located in Havana’s Avenida del Puerto, the museum gives a detailed approach to the rum-making industry and offers visitors the opportunity of taking a sip of this silver-dry spirit.

Indeed, Mrs. Jimenez explained, the Rum Museum turned four last March 30. Since its opening in the year 2000 to date, a grand total of 308,076 visitors from as many as fifty countries, most of them tourists (65 percent), have walked past the turnstiles.

During the anniversary ceremony and party, officials praised Cubatur, Cubanacan and Gaviota Tour as the top three senders of visitors to the Rum Museum.

Other outstanding tour operators linked to the Museum are Neckerman-Thomas Cook and TUI (both from Germany), Vacances Air Transat, Nouvelles Frontieres and Kuoni (from France), as well as Spain’s Marsans.

At the same time, French and German sunbathers were cheered as the premier visitors to a museum that also harbors an art gallery exhibiting the works of different well-known artists on a monthly basis.

The Museum has several floors devoted to show the entire rum-making process from the sugarcane plantations all the way to the distilleries, thus giving a detailed recount of the island nation’s culture and history. The facility also has an inner patio and a 1930s-style bar that has really caught on among visitors.

Havana Club, Cuba’s leading rum brand, recently won a legal battle in a U.S. court that struck down intentions to fake this coveted product and upheld both its legitimacy and quality.

HCI International Marketing Director Stefano Oldrati told Caribbean News Digital that Havana Club now ranks among the world’s top-50 spirits and holds the third spot on the list of the best rums distilled under the sun.

The Rum Museum is in the heart of Old Havana (262 Avenida del Puerto on the corner of Sol St.), a part of the Cuban capital embracing a 2.2-square-mile colonial center that UNESCO declared Cultural Heritage of Mankind back in 1982.