SANTA CLARA, Cuba. – If one condition previously distinguished the New Year’s parties in Cuba, it was the family toasts with what could be found in each house and in which there was usually no shortage of beer or a bottle of nationally produced rum. For years now, these collective revels have become much more austere and reserved, largely due to the high prices of drinks.
Shortly before the disappearance of the CUC, the Havana Club brand bottles disappeared from the few stores that were still selling in this currency. They appeared months later in a well-stocked inventory, but only for freely convertible currency (MLC) and at prices that to this day exceed $10.
Although it may seem incredible, in Cuba a bottle of whiskey Chancelier, of Brazilian origin, is much cheaper than a Santiago rum. Most of the individuals who resell them buy them second-hand and offer them at prices that range between 1,000 and 1,200 pesos. “Not everyone can afford a bottle,” explains Raciel, a self-employed person who sells it by the canecas for 450 pesos each. “In the end, you get the same profit, the same with vodka, another of those that is entering the country a lot, also from Brazil.” One of the stable clients of this seller confirms that he never imagined that the whiskeya previously exclusive drink can now be purchased at a better price than Havana Club rum: “I don’t even remember what Cuban rum tastes like,” he says.
In the midst of the crisis with nationally produced drinks, official media indicated that Havana Club had experienced enormous growth within the portfolio of the French group Pernod Ricard, and that “despite the decrease in sugar production levels in Cuba ”, the Azcuba Business Group prioritized “the necessary volumes” to manufacture Havana Club and maintain exports to more than 125 countries in the world.
In the state bars of Santa Clara, a liter of this brand costs more than 2,000 pesos since it is sold by the measure of single or double drinks and, however, vodka, whiskey or imported beer cost a little less. In an analysis published in Cuban Diary As a result of the tariff increase decreed at the beginning of the year for the importation of alcoholic beverages, journalist Rafaela Cruz reasons that “if today Cubans prefer to drink foreign beers over national brands, it is because their quality-price-availability ratio surpasses local ones.”
In the case of the national beer of the Bucanero and Cristal brands, practically disappeared from the market, its production had a drop in recent years due to lack of raw materials, especially cans to store them, according to official sources alleged last June. The technical director of the factory based in Holguín assured They have only been able to market it in national currency and in tourist facilities through barrels using the dispenser modality.
The scarcity of national rums on the market in national currency has long encouraged the proliferation of artisanal stills and Creole winesbut the high prices of sugar also increase the final cost of those Creole products that are commonly called “chispetrén”, “azuquín” or “saltapatrás” due to their side effects. As confirmed to CubaNet Vladimir, an alembic maker from Santa Clara residing on the outskirts of the city, “there is no business making them anymore” since brown sugar or purge honey is needed to distill the alcohol obtained through a coil.
Around this time in previous years in Villa Clara, hundreds of people gathered in areas of the Sandino stadium to try to buy a regulated assortment of drinks with a ticket. As a palliative, at the beginning of this month of December, the Government sold a bottle of rum per core produced by the Camajuaní Beverages and Liquor Company at the price of 315 pesos.
However, the product has been highly criticized on social networks due to its dubious quality. The journalist from the CMHW station Jesús Álvarez López dedicated him a post on Facebookin which he claimed that he had already tasted it and that it tasted “like hell.” Other users also claimed that in addition to being expensive, it had an unpleasant taste similar to that of “azuquin” or bulk rum and that, instead of drinking it, they took advantage of it to light the charcoal and the reverberators.
