Гавана Клаб: Тарихы мен даулары

Brand of rum

Havana Club is a brand of rum created in Cuba in 1934. Originally produced in Cárdenas, Cuba, by family owned José Arechabala S. A., the brand was nationalized after the Cuban Revolution of 1959. In 1993, French owned Pernod Ricard and the government of Cuba created a state run 50:50 joint venture called Corporación Cuba Ron. They began exporting this version of Havana Club globally, except for the United States due to the embargo put in place by the U. S. government. Bacardi, another Cuban family that had left Cuba after the Cuban revolution, after purchasing the original Arechabala family Havana Club recipe, also began producing Havana Club Rum in 1994, a competing product made in Puerto Rico and sold in the United States. Bacardi and Pernod Ricard have engaged in ongoing litigation about ownership of the name "Havana Club".

The Arechabala family founded a distillery in Cardenas, Cuba in 1878. The company was nationalized without compensation by the Castro government in 1960. The Arechabala family allege it was taken from them at gunpoint. Subsequently, much of the Arechabala family was forced to leave Cuba for Spain and the United States, while other members of the family were imprisoned. The Cuban government sold rum abroad under the Havana Club name beginning in 1972, focusing primarily on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The government focused on Havana Club because (unlike the Bacardi family) the Arechabala family had not established plants outside of Cuba and so could not produce a competing brand. The company was considered a "national jewel" by the Cuban government, and in 1977 manufacturing was moved to a new plant in Santa Cruz del Norte. After José Arechabala S. A. was nationalized, the Arechabala family fled Cuba and was forced to stop producing rum. The US trademark registration for "Havana Club" lapsed in 1973. The family alleges that this was due to the company's lawyer, Javier Arechabala, remaining imprisoned at the time. Taking advantage of the lapse, the Cuban government registered the mark in the US in 1976. The brand was then assigned by the Cuban government to Pernod Ricard in 1993. In 1994, Bacardi obtained the Arechabala family's remaining rights in the brand and began producing limited amounts of rum bearing the name. 922 cases were sold in the US in 1995 and 1996. This drew litigation from Pernod Ricard. Pernod Ricard was successful in two of the first three court holdings issued in this litigation. However, in 1998, after heavy lobbying from Bacardi, the US Congress passed the "Bacardi Act" (Section 211 of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1998), which protected trademarks related to expropriated Cuban companies, and effectively ended the first phase of the litigation by eliminating Pernod Ricard's standing. The statute has been applied only to the Havana Club trademark, The United States has not yet acted to address the WTO ruling, despite a 2005 deadline and requests from the European Union. Following the initial round of litigation, the second round of litigation occurred, through both the US Federal court system and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, focused in part on the allegedly deceptive nature of the use of "Havana" in the name of a rum produced outside of Cuba. while Bacardi announced plans to extend distribution of Bacardi's version of Havana Club throughout the US. In Spain, Pernod Ricard's ownership of the mark has been upheld in three court rulings, most recently in 2011. Bacardi appealed the decision, and in 2017, a bipartisan delegation from the Florida House of Representatives asked new President Donald Trump to reverse the decision.

Pernod Ricard's Havana Club is the fifth largest rum brand in the world, with almost 4 million cases sold in 2012–2013. It is sold in over 120 countries. Since 2008, it is also bottled in India, the world's second largest rum market. Pernod Ricard plays heavily on Cuban themes in its marketing, including labeling Havana Club as "El Ron de Cuba" ("The Rum of Cuba"). Pernod Ricard's labeling, originated by Cubaexport in the 1970s, is gold and red and features the Giraldilla, a weathervane from the old fort of Havana.

Clásico, marketed as a sipping rum. Blanco, marketed as a mixer.