Product description
The Havana Club brand was established in Cuba back in 1934. The rums were manufactured by a family-owned company José Arechabala S.A. The Havana Club rums were sold in Cuba and exported to the United States.
After the Cuban Revolution, the Arechabala family were forced to emigrate and the brand was nationalised in 1960. In 1972 there were attempts at reviving the brand, focusing on the Soviet and Eastern European markets. In 1993 the Cuban government entered a partnership with the French spirits giant Pernod Ricard, and together they founded Corporación Cuba Ron company, with 50-50 stakes. Meanwhile, a competitor on the spirits market, Bacardi, purchased the original Havana Club Rum recipes from the Arechabala family and commenced production in 1994. The Bacardi products, manufactured in Puerto Rico, were exported to the United States market, from which the Cuban products were embargoed since the Cuban Revolution. There is an ongoing legal battle for the rights to the brand, which does not stand in the way of the Havana Club products conquering the world’s markets and the hearts of rum drinkers.
Havana Club Professional Edition A is the first (of four) special editions of Havana Club rum. Each edition is marked with a consecutive letter of the alphabet. Edition A was designed to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the famed Cuban cocktail bar El Floridita. The task for the Havana Club masters was to create a rum that would be complex enough for the world-famous El Floridita daiquiris. Three different 4-year-old rums were selected alongside an aguardiente, a sugar cane based liqueur, vatted together in a very large barrel, then filtered to remove the colour and bottled at 40% vol.
Nose: Notes of sugar cane, cinnamon, herbs, coconut, a hint of oak.
Palate: Full and rich, with herbal notes, coconut, vanilla, spice and oak.
Finish: Long, with notes of vermouth and spices.