Taste For Rum Is Here

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31576, 13 January 1968, Page 18

Taste For Rum Is Here

(Specially written for “The

Press” by

T. J. McGOVERNE)

New Zealanders, who take second place only to the Australians in the beer - drinking world, may in time become similarly noted for their rum capacity.

At least the indications are that the celebrated “Half-G” has a serious rival in a relative newcomer to the city ing scene. Rum is actually derived from molasses. Its great virtue is that it contains very few of those dastardly impurities —the stuff from which hangovers are made. The rum trade in New Zealand has boomed in the last six years. It started after an enterprising Christchurch wine and spirits merchant had visited Mexico and discovered a certain white rum which he forecast would work wonders on the New Zealand palate. It did. Sales Increase The first shipment reached New Zealand in 1959—a mere 230 cases—the pipe opener so to speak. Sales have spiralled. In 1965 New Zealanders drank 21,500 cases of the rum. Just a drop in the 61 million gallon ocean of beer they drank that year bqt it was all that could be imported under licensing restrictions. Only a bottle or two has ever reached Auckland from the sole New Zealand agency in Christchurch. The rest has been sold and drunk before Aucklanders have been able to get their hands on it

Just before Christmas the agents started bottling tne rum in Christchurch. This was a move designed to get more of the spirit into New Zealand on the same undersized licence. Dark oaken barrels stained and impregnated with the tang of the raw spirit roll into a musty cellar in Waltham Road. Days later it comes out again in green-tinted quart and pint bottles, having been reduced to potable proportions. The wave of rum drinking is largely confined to the produce of a certain Cuban family which began distilling just over 100 years ago. Family Secret Don Facundo Bacardi was a small-time food and drink wholesaler in Santiago de Cuba. He personally hated the dark navy rums that pirates, demi-pirates looting under royal patronage, and other sailors had drunk for years. So Baeardi did not offer rum for sale.

But his was very bad for business as Cubans were partial to rum. With red figures staring him in the face Bacardi set out to pro-

duce a rum that would meet their tastes. Bacardi followed the usual distillation and fermentation processes but did something else, no-one but a few of the family knows what, to impart a certain lightness and smoothness to the rum. The development process took 20 years before the Bacardi family was satisfied. When they put the rum on the market it was so successful they discarded everything else and concentrated on rum making. A company was formed in 1862 with an initial capital of $3500 and 100 years later profits annually had risen to $6.5 million. Plants were opened in Mexico in 1929 and Puerto Rico in 1937. In 1960 Fidel Castro came out of the hills and confiscated the Bacardi business—everything including the family cars. Bacardi had sensed something of the sort during the Batista regime and had wisely moved most of the operations to Nassau in the Bahamas. Trade Mark But the Castro take-over cut the company’s production in half. To protect the name Bacardi, Bacardi International was set up with headquarters in Nassau and steps were taken to secure the trade mark world wide. Even so there was still trouble. Countless firms and individuals wanted to use the name to describe the colour and texture of their product. Even a women’s coat manufacturer wanted to be on the Bacardi bandwaggon. The name so became part

of American-English that it was used to describe any light rum. The company wen a New York Supreme Court ruling that baeardi meant Bacardi. The name and the product won approval in Spain when King Alfonso was passing his sickly childhood near Madrid. In 1892 the royal child fell ill with influenza and as his fever raged doctors tried everything they knew, In desperation they gave the child Bacardi’s rum and the fever left him. Royal letters were written to the Bacardi company in thanks and the company was given permissioQ to use the Spanish coat of arms on all ' labels.