MIAMI, United States. – This week, the magazine Forbes Italy chose Cuban rum as one of the best in the world, shortly after the knowledge of Cuban rum masters was included on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
“Rum from Cuba, also called light rum, needs no introduction. Its merit also corresponds to the method of distillation, aging and blending developed in Cuba, and in particular in Santiago de Cuba, which continues to represent the highest expression of the light rum production technique even today,” it reads. the note published by Forbes Italy.
“Santiago de Cuba Rum is manufactured, aged and bottled only in the city of Santiago de Cuba, in the first and oldest Cuban rum factory, dating from 1862,” the publication also highlights.
Forbes Italy it also celebrates the “totally natural” elaboration of the drink, made “in selected and very old white oak barrels, some of them with more than 70 years of use. The heat and humidity of the tropics naturally accelerate the evaporation of the alcohol and the fusion with the woody substances”, he points out.
According to the Italian magazine, “the intense flavor and aroma of Cuban rum transmit unique sensations typical of a quality product, dry but with an intense, smooth and balanced aftertaste.”
At the beginning of December, heUNESCO declared the elaboration of rum in Cuba as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, so now the tradition of the Cuban rum masters must be protected.
The inscription in that list supposes an endorsement to the artisans and a call to the government to care for and keep alive that ancestral heritage.
For more than 155 years, eight generations of teachers accumulated knowledge about the preparation of light rum in Cuba, to pass it on orally and in daily practice to their apprentices, recalls the AFP news agency.
Cuban light rum is obtained from cane honey or molasses and is aged in wooden barrels before consumption. The generation that keeps this knowledge is currently made up of three first teachers, seven teachers and four aspirants.
This select group is the repository, guardian and transmitter of the knowledge originated with the agro-industrial sugar boom in the 19th century.
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