Being the first woman to integrate the select club of nine teachers of the Ron Cuban has simply been a matter of “effort, commitment and responsibility,” he assured in an interview with EFE Salome German.
“When you enter this factory, you fall in love,” he explained in one of the warehouses of the Santa Cruz rum factory, 66 kilometers east of Havana, where this alcoholic beverage prepared from sugar cane is stored.
At the white rum distillery, belonging to the Cuba Ron SA Corporation, Salomé has spent a good part of her 57 years since she began working there, after graduating as a chemical engineer.
In 2016, this woman from Havana received the qualification of “rum master” and broke the taboos around a world dominated until then exclusively by men.
Now she is a member of this select club together with Noemí del Toro, who works in the rum factory in Santiago de Cuba and became a rum master in 2019.
The knowledge of rum
Sharing the knowledge of light rum demands “a lot of commitment,” Salomé explained before evaluating several samples for smell, taste, texture and other technical issues in one of the laboratories of the Santa Cruz distillery.
“Being a master of Cuban rum has as its first responsibility, among many, being the guardian of an inherited culture, of a way of making rum that differs from other countries,” she said surrounded by wooden barrels.
Several generations of Cuban rum masters kept their knowledge for more than 150 years on how to age light rum.
This knowledge ranges from technological aspects to the symbolism that rum itself represents as an element closely linked to the identity of Cuba as a country, as Salomé assured.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) declared this centuries-old tradition as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2022.
complex process
“It was men who modified that original rum and gave it a whole series of sensory aspects that led it to be what we have in the world today with great pride,” Salomé explained when referring to the marked male presence in the industry.
In addition, she stated that she had no professional obstacles when she began to prepare as an aspiring rum teacher, although she admits that she had a “complex” for being a woman.
«Being an aspirant allows you to be part of the teachers’ teams, listen to them, learn from their experience. They themselves wanted the incorporation of women into the movement”, she added.
However, she considers that “in the case of women it is much more complex” to advance professionally “because there are still traits of machismo in Cuban society”, despite the advances and women continue “to carry the burden of care familiar”.
This master rum maker shares her time between her only son and her family, and her other “inspiration”, as she calls it: rum.
“These have been complex times, but only that commitment inspires you to get ahead and look for alternatives within your personal life,” he said.
At the end of the tour of the Santa Cruz rum factory, Salomé said goodbye, assuring that she still has a lot to do: «I have the commitment to continue training aspiring teachers and good technicians for the future; I have a commitment to my factory and my barrels».
Laura Becquer / EFE
