State Company Recognizes Adulterated Havana Club Rum
HAVANA TIMES — Cuba’s CIMEX corporation recognized that one of its establishments was selling adulterated bottles of the popular Havana Club rum, CubaDebate reported.
The incident was first reported early last month, when it emerged that a user had been scammed by acquiring the product at the Servicupet Cotorro in East Havana, The rum inside the bottle was not Havana Club.
The measures taken by the company led to the “firing of the 7 workers involved, including 6 cashiers and one salesperson, as well as the corresponding charges filed by the prosecutor.”
Most people say that the Havana Club rum marketed domestically is different from that exported, and for which that mark is famous internationally. Moreover, it often happens that the content of this brand, as well as rum “Santiago de Cuba” are adulterated.
Though “The Arechabala family allowed the trademark to lapse in 1973.”
The Havana Club rum distillery was established in 1878 in Santa Cruz del Norte by José Arechabala. After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the Cuban government seized the distillery and company without compensation. Subsequently, the Arechabala family left for Spain, then emigrated to the United States. In 1994 Fidel signed a contract with the French multi-national corporation, Pernod Ricard to modernize the distillery and to market the product abroad.
in 1997 the Arechabalas sold their rights to the Havana Club brand to Bacardi, including the recipe for the original Havana Club rum. In 2006, after more than 10 years of legal struggles between the Bacardi & the Pernod Ricard-Cuban partnership, the Cuban version of the trade mark was denied recognition in the United States & Bacardi released their own version of Havana Club (produced in Puerto Rico). As of July 2012 the trademark dispute had not been settled.
Bacardi has long made it known they will one day return to Cuba, after the Castro’s are gone, and reclaim their distillery in Santiago de Cuba, which they claim was stolen from them by the Castros. No doubt, they will also fight to gain control of the Havana Club brand as well.