Bacardi

Bacardi was founded in 1862 in Santiago de Cuba by Facundo Bacardi Masso, a Spanish wine merchant who developed a smoother, lighter style of rum by filtering it through charcoal and ageing it in white oak barrels. The family kept control through the Cuban Revolution and the loss of its original Cuban assets in 1960, having already moved trademarks and formulas offshore in the years before. It has been based in Bermuda since 1965 and remains one of the largest family owned names in spirits, seven generations on.

Most production happens in Puerto Rico, with additional distilleries in Mexico and India covering the rest of global demand. The process still follows the approach Facundo developed, two separate distillates blended together, then charcoal filtered and aged in white oak, producing the clean, light bodied style that helped define white rum as a category. It remains one of the most recognised names in rum worldwide.