Bacardi 1920's

[Hayds]

Big fella "Ian” you said open a new thread about 1920's Bacardi so here it is..

There have been many rumours about the fate of the former Bacardi Distilleries in Cuba but this one is new to me. Most concern the Distillery in Santiago de Cuba not Havana (I'll have to check if there was ever a distillery in Havana - I know there was a Brewery but not sure about a distillery). Anyhoo... Bacardi left Cuba in 1960 not the 1920s. There was also no break in production for prohibition so the idea of a 'pre-prohibition' Bacardi is a little odd. There has been much debate in recent times as to whether Bacardi is the same now as in the 1920s and many prominent rum writers, bloggers; commentators and bartenders have had their say. The Maestros de Ron who control everything to do with the production of Bacardi are a proud bunch and, having asked them face to face if it has changed and had a very forthright and incredulous response of ‘without question… no!’, I am pretty happy that it has never intentionally been changed. There will always be the lovers of a good conspiracy that will say it has. There are possibly bits of old Bacardi kit being used across the island… who knows?

Bacardi 1920's is hugely different from today’s Bacardi! How do I know? I have a bottle of 1920's Bacardi on the back bar! Oh and 1950's Oro it's one of the perks at the Merchant... no trips to Kentucky or NY but it is made up with a great meal at Zen and getting to hang out with my buddy Ian;)!
So what make's the 1920's Bacardi different from today’s Bacardi... Technology, advances in the science of spirit production i.e. filtration, distillation account for a small amount in difference in taste, look and aroma. But that’s only a small amount!
I’m a kiwi and there is only one type of rum and its dark! Why because we like Coruba and Capt. Morgan but it also implies we like taste. Ok so there not the best examples of taste... it’s a mental thing and a marketing thing. This brings me to my other point Bacardi has marketed itself as spirit that mixes with everything ,trying to shake the old stereotype of Rum and all the baggage it carries with it. In doing so it has made itself into the Vodka of the rum category. It has captured a market and by doing so lost some of its “spirit”, as with anything that appeals to the masses it becomes homogenised which accounts for the change of flavour and aroma which in turn has netted higher profits and created a global empire! (nuff said on the marketing/account side driving the taste of Bacardi)Bloody pen pushers and bean counters anyways...
The 1920’s Bacardi has a wonderful mouth feel with real depth and character it dominates more in cocktails than today’s Bacardi, is a better product? No it’s a different product and you can try it at The Merchant Hotel for about £150 see ya real soon

Hayds

sorry its late and Im losing my train of thought!

[thebartrainer]

I'm not going to deny that the 1920's bottle of Bacardi in the Merchant tastes different to a freshly cracked bottle of Bacardi from 2009.

However...

The premise that spirits don't change in bottle is flawed at the best of times, even over relatively short periods of time (say 20 years) so to say that the bottle in the merchant (minimum 80yrs in a clear glass bottle) is in the same condition as the day it was bottled is, I think, incorrect.

How do you come to the contention that Bacardi has become more profitable over the years as a result of, in your words "change of flavour"?? You are quite right in saying that the kit we use has changed over the years, the Distillation rig used in the old distillery in Cuba was retired in 1911, however the process has stayed the same. All distillers and distilleries are on a quest for greater efficiency of production in order to use less fuel, get better production from their raw materials, cut time wasted on maintenance and most importantly be more consistant. All I can do at this point is re-iterate what I said in the piece you quoted above about asking the question of the Maestros de Ron Bacardi and being given a catagorical No!...

I think that the mistake that is made by many at the moment is the correlation of BIG bold flavour and quality. The age of subtlety appears to have gone with people looking for things to be big sweet and obvious before they will acknowledge any quality about them.

If the job Bacardi does is to produce drier style rum with layers of flavour which mixes well in and lends itself to being mixed then we are still doing what we set out to 147 years ago.

Cheers

Ian

PS. Looking forward to Wayne Curtis on the 19th @ Connesuirs Club @ The Merchant in Belfast

[Hayds]

Mate, Im not questioning the flavour or the quality of the product! I am however saying that it is a distictly different product from the 1920's Bacardi. You mentioned in the previous post that the bottle may have been compromised or may have changed in subtle ways. Of course it could have, I don't beleive it has in anyway. The colour of the spirit is different, which could be easliy be explained by filtration... I think you mentioned something about the charcoal removing the colour yellow? Anyways the base of the 1920's has a really mollase's feel/aroma with a sweet nose, which carta blanca does not....carta blanca has that savory edge to it.
My arguement is'nt about the quality of Bacardi it's about the two products being extremely different. And I want to find out why... Ian you always tell me about the systmatic approach and the lenghts Bacardi go to maintain quality control! You asked the Maestros if they changed the product at all, as an outsider with access to the 1920's product I can only draw one conclusion Bacardi somewhere and at some point did change carta blanca. I know it's a huge and bold statment and I have to take your word on the fact that they didn't. But as you mentioned in training it was hard for the trainging team to extract all the information on all the processes that are used in the production of Bacardi. Which leads me to believe through the exchanging of information and tweaking of the Bacardi recipe it has been changed by the distillers, this may have not been on purpose! And to prove it correct or incorrect we would need samples from every decade to see when and where the recipe was "tweaked". If the information was passed down from one Maestros to another there could be a chinese whisper effect which we see all to often in cocktail books where people mis copy a recipe...

We can't really say that it hasn't changed as there are too many factors and varibles that could have caused simple changes! I also mentioned in the previous post about the marketing factor. What I really ment to convey is that Bacardi has given it's customers what it wants a light rum and it has been extremely good at doing so which has earned it millions. Customer demand could have prompted Bacardi to rethink its recipe!

I really hate writting
Hayds
ps see you on the19th great times

[thebartrainer]

Unfortunately this is not going to be resolved unless you are willing to concede that the spirit in that bottle has changed over the minimum 80 years it has been in there. I am in no way suggesting that the bottle has been compromised in any way (that is to say tampered with)

You may not believe it has changed but the balance of probablility says that it will have changed significantly. The lighter, fresher aromatics which are more volatile will undoutedly be less pronounced as they will have dissapated over the life of the liquid. What you are left with are the less volatile, sweeter connotation notes and a range of flavours that will have developed over the years as a result of the interraction with the air, light, heat etc.

Bacardi have taken the opportunity to release new products onto the market from time to time since 1862 and so could have introduced a new brand or a line extension of some sort if they wanted to chase the profits in neutral spirits. After all the clamour was not for dumbed down versions of old things in the 1960's and 70s but for new things that were not associated with the older generation. Your assertion that the blend may have changed over time due to Chinese whispers or an inconsistancy between blenders I also find hard to entertain as the apprenticeship period for a Maestro is a number of decades under their mentors.

Cheers

Ian

[rumandcokefloat]

Dearest Bartrainer,

I too have tasted the 1920's Bacardi, & while I did recognise the nose as Bacardi (so not that degraded), and a wee bit of mustyness to the bottle, there was indeed a rich, creamy aroma to it too.

Of course it will have changed in the bottle, but not beyond recognition for me, so I don't think we can just write off what Hayds says due to age, and the mention of Wayne Curtis particuarly relevant, as he writes (quite objectively) about a similair experiance in New Orleans, and other rum notables such as Jeff Berry have made comments along these lines too.

I don't know for sure of course, but the assertion is made from my own experience, and with all due respect to you who has visited the distillery and the Meastro's who make it, but how could they say anything else? If it has changed, I do believe its probably a lot more likely to be a few little tweaks rather than an overnight blitzkrieg, to help it flourish in an ever changing world and market.

I personally believe Bacardi Carta Blanca has always been a light rum, but is probably a bit lighter today than it was back in 1920

[Evo-lution]

Been following this thread with interest and thought I'd throw in my tuppence worth, not necessarily on Bacardi but on spirits/brands in general.

I posed the same question as Ian - regarding modern Bacardi tasting the same as Prohibition era Bacardi - to Jose Gomez at the Bacardi Legacia training last year and received the same answer...

However, I find it hard to believe that any spirit/brand that's been produced for a number of years is being manufactured the same way now as it was 'x' years ago. There are so many variables to take into account in spirit production, and I can think of a good few brands that have changed their product in the nine years that I've been bartending for a vast number of reasons.

With all this in mind, I don't think that Bacardi would be any different to be perfectly honest and feel pretty confident that I am right, however I'd be more than happy to be proved wrong.

[Hayds]

How could I possibly concede? I have your say so that the Maestros are a humble, well trained bunch of guys and that any of them would entertain the idea of corrupting the recipe... We really are playing a game of good cop bad cop!

So I have had some advice from people like Paul Clark, Robert Burr and of course the realible Wayne Curtis in the form of Waynes book "and a Bottle of rum" oh and the great thing about using Wayne is that we can both speak to him on the 19th... But we both know you will follow the predictible Bacardi line... Nothing has changed!

So here is my qoute from Waynes book page 238
"Remsberg notices and smiles. "You should really see this," he says to me. "This would have been the old Bacardi White Label they used to make make the first daiquiris in Havana. This would have been would have been aged four years, then it would have stripped the colour of it by filtering it through charcoal. I don't have lime or I would make you Constantino's El Floridita daiquiri. But you can say this is what started the daiquiri - this rum."
He pours out a bit more that a thimbleful into a glass, and I bring it under my nose. It's not the least medicinal, but complex and inviting. I sip. My word. It's like tasting in Technicolor-its full,complex not too flowery, but also lacking a trace of unpleasant heaviness. It's unlike any white rum I've tasted.
Remsber was grining at my inability to hide my shock. "So you can see why Prohibition-starved Americans flooding El Floridita would have said, 'This is good!' There was something about those early Cuban cocktail rums. They were just better rums than the world had seen. Nobody is producing a white rum today as pleasing as this."

Sorry for the huge quote, really just trying to get my point across! Remsberg is noted as having the largest private rum collection in the world! As I said im not having a go at Bacardi! Just presenting an alternate perspective on the subject!

Hayds

[rumandcokefloat]

The craziest thing about that quote, is one of the worlds biggest/best rum collections, but not a lime in the house!

[Hayds]

for those who haven't seen the a bottle of 1920's Bacardi here it is... Sorry about the face connected to the bottle! Oh and no limes in the house it would have been a sin!

[thebartrainer]

Whilst I am toeing the party line Hayds I am also standing up for what I personally believe to be true… I may be many things, but an unthinking, blinkered and brainwashed company boy I am not.

I am happy that I am basing my argument on the chemistry involved in the creation / degradation of flavour through oxidation rather than resorting to quoting a third hand conjecture.

This is not to say that I am in any way doubting the wisdom (and size of collection) of Steve Remsberg or Wayne Curtis, but before Curtis had even tried the liquid he had been set up mentally to believe that there was something different about it. Not something that had been caused by the decades in a bottle but a flavour difference that was created by the implicit much better (longer ageing means ‘better’ we all know that right!!) way it used to be crafted back in the 1920s. Lest we forget all of the major changes in equipment had happened by this point in time which takes out the Pot vs column argument.

This statement to Curtis before he came into contact to the liquid is enough to taint his opinion and although I don't think it made him taste things that weren't there... the opinion he puts across in that quote is not his but Remsberg's. I don’t know where Steve Remsberg got his information on the production process in the 1920s but given the scale of his collection I’m guessing he is a well connected man in the rum world. When I know the source for his statements on production I will be able to make a judgement on their validity.

Let me be clear that I am not casting aspersions on the good name of either Curtis or Remsburg… all I am saying is that the power of suggestion in these matters is so strong that the words and nudges in any one direction can shape what people think, and even in some cases taste and smell.

Your quote has done nothing to dissuade me from the assertion that it is the same liquid today as it was then and that the passage of time is what has caused the differences you, rumandcokefloat, Curtis and Remsberg detect. Until you can produce some chemistry that tells me that this spirit has not been affected by the 80+ years it has been in a bottle we’ll have to agree to disagree.

As a foot note I’d definitely recommend vacu vin-ing that bottle if you don’t want to degrade it further… at ½ full there is definitely enough oxygen in there now to do some harm. How long have you had it like that?

Cheers

Ian

[angusw]

I have to say that if you really think the stuff today is the same rum as the 1920s etc then you are slightly deluded.

I would say the same thing to any spirit producer... this is not a Bacardi specific issue,

having said that the rum they make now from the three distilleries (I know of) all taste slightly different dont they?

Coke tastes different today than it did then and varies from country to country.

Its a fact of life and a sign of "progress".

aw

[thebartrainer]

If you think that rumandcokefloat and Hayds are posting on this because of the great 'progress' they think Bacardi has made then I think that you too are mistaken. The accusation here is one of chasing the dollar to the detriment of the quality of the rum and the integrity of those that produce it.

Having tried the rum from all 3 distilleries around the world I can honestly say that, apart from ABV when tasted neat, they all taste the same. (but then this is all subjective!)

How many (non Vodka!) spirit brands do you know that would be happy to concede that they have, to quote Jeff Berry "been deliberately turning it into garbage over the years. Since the early 1960s they have been chasing the vodka market - - "[insert well known spirit brand and it's 1960s ad slogan]" was their old line from back then - - by taking all of the [insert spirit category name] flavour out of their [insert spirit category name] as to make it as neutral and tasteless as vodka"

This is the accusation leveled at Bacardi, not one of progress.

Cheers

Ian

[Hayds]

Ian I really am enjoying this debate, mate your a great guy and as I said you me and Harper and anyone else that wants to taste 1920's bacardi should drop by on the 19th and we will club together and buy a 35ml shot.

This is not a war against Bacardi or Ian, and Ian Im only kidding about the toeing the company line. I am not the greastest at the chemistry bit because I sucked at school, I cant even remember learning anything at school! I know that the spirit may be changing in the bottle, but boy if you could just smell and taste what I have tasted, you will certainly know that the carta blanca of the 1920's is different... forget science and chemistry because at the end of the day, it is the human nose and taste which will always define the product.

For me this has been an interesting journey, I have read more books asked more questions and of course written far to much and realised why I am a bartender, because there is no way I could be anything else... ok I have thought about male modeling for +size guys

A.W, I don't think Ian is deluded, just passionate and his passion is great and comendable. Ian has the right to fight for what he believes

I don't really care about the profits of Bacardi and I even received the nicest invite throught my letter box yesterday... Up for auction a Bottle of 1920's Bacardi, really bummed I cant make it! life and it's quirks

sorry posting this in two parts

[Hayds]

Ok I can't win this debate on my level of chemistry or on my quoting of books, I thought using Wayne Curtis as a Rum-ombudsmen was a stroke of genius! Ian you want more proof and I will do my best to find it! So maybe I can turn to history to make my argument... Prohbition is in full swing "my 1920's bacardi and is being aged 4years!" is being mixed into everything, lo mismos Mojitos, Daiquiris, Rum and Cokes... The party ends with the re-apeal of the 18th amendment. Everyone heads home with the taste of Rum on there lips and then the USA is flooded with Rum, Rum is coming out of the yin yang! Ok maybe rum isn't coming out of the yin yang, but you get my drift! From what I can gather Cuba at the time didn't have any laws regarding the distilling/ageing process or quality control of it's rum but it is aging it's white rum upto 4yrs and there is no mention of it being blended with agua dente. That would have been left at the discretion of the distillers! Bacardi being well business savy started making rum in Puerto Rico 1936ish? So all Puerto Rico rum and I mean all rum was shipped into the states at lower cost as they did not have to pay export tax. The american public would have easier access to Puerto Rico rum than any other rum as It was cheap. Enter a world war and Puerto Rican rum would have been almost the only rum availble in the States... well nearly Im not counting out the fact that other rums would have been available. The war ends and the sale of Puerto Rican Rum drops as Amercians can now get Whisk(e)y and had only been drinking rum as a last resort! (for years they were filling the market with a rum that was dominated by price neglecting taste and quality. This included all rums manerfactured in Puerto Rico, Don Q and Bacardi were the two biggest names)
Puerto Rico introduced the Mature Spirits act in the 1940s. Which laid down ageing periods for export rum minium 1yr for white rum and 3yrs for gold.
The Act stated that all Puerto Rican rum had to be blended before export, a tradition was formed of never using more than three blends....


Part 3 to come

[Hayds]

Sorry about doing this in parts, the post reply box won't let me write loads, it must know it's all rubbish!

Ok so in the 1940's Puerto Rico has laid down controls to enhance the quality of its rum, Bacardi and all the distillers on the Island would have been greatly influenced by The Mature spirits act, and this is where I believe Bacardi Carta Blanca evolved into the product we know and love today! Puerto Rico set about creating a light body rum, Bacardi from what we can gather was producing a light style of rum already, but not as light as it is toady. In order to create a light body rum you needed to emlimate 'fusel oils' and 'aldehyde' from the distillate. In 1952 Dr Rodriguez-Benitez implemented a model for the development of Puerto Rican rum with the aid of the Puerto Rican governemt. He collected over 200 samples of yeast from all over the world, except New Zealand... We were already making 42below by then. Dr Rodriguez-Benitez along with a bacteriologist selected four of the best yeast's and gave them them to each of the distillers on the island along with the systematic course on every phase of rum making. Bacardi Catano site was brought into commission in 1958 shortly there after Bacardi left Cuba making the Cantano site the major supplier to the USA. After reading all the material I have on this which is one book I really get the feeling that Bacardi really benefited from the research that Puerto Rican government funded in the 1930's to the 1960's not only did they look into yeast strains which they gave away freely they looked into the problem of obtaining high yeild mollase. Here are a few things that have been part of the Bacardi gospel. Yeast culture and mollasse. They also enstilled in the Puerto Rican distillers the need for constant controls on every aspect of distillation.
And that is why some 20yrs after the production of the 1920's Bacardi in Cuba, Carta Blanca evolved into another product! Thats me I would like to thank Hugh Barty -King & Anton Massel for there help with words like 'Fussel oils'....
I hope it makes some sense

Hayds,
ps thats me for now on this subject... It has been great fun, thanks for all the comments and the idea's.. I have really enjoyed looking into the finer points of rum production!