Museo del Ron Havana Club

About the Business:

A visit to the Havana Club Museum of Rum isn’t merely a journey back to the origins of Cuba’s most famous beverage. From freshly cut stalks of sugar cane to a reconstitution of a distillery and ageing cellars, the museum offers a real-time experience of the rum-making process, as well as a taste of true Cuban culture. Situated in the historic district of Habana Vieja (“old Havana”), the museum is housed in a renovated 18th-century “solar” (colonial townhouse). Downstairs is a shady patio, with its broad stone columns and ferns, yuccas and potted palms. A bell signals the start of the museum tour, and you follow the guide up a flight of stone steps. The first landing presents a view of the cooper shop, demonstrating the craftsmanship required to build and prepare the oak casks inside which the fine rums will age. An upstairs gallery features an authentic mule-driven cane mill used in the earliest “ingenios” (sugar refineries). A historically accurate model of a steam locomotive reminds us that Cuba was the first country in Latin America to use a railway for the transport of sugar cane. The next door leads to a much larger model, the achievement of a master Cuban craftsman. This masterpiece captures the essence of the great sugar refineries and rum distilleries, whose immense chimneys rise as landmarks over the Cuban countryside.