Havana Club Set to Enter U.S. Market the Minute the Embargo Disappears

New Label

     Cuba’s Havana Club rum is set to enter the U.S. market “even if it were to open tomorrow,” according to executives of the firm that exports 75 percent of its production.   “We’re well prepared. We’ve spent 16 years waiting for the opening of that market, which is the world’s biggest for rum,” master rum distiller Jose Navarro told a press conference in Havana, to which he presented the new image of the iconic firm’s rum that is aged for seven years.

Old Label

     Early this year, the mixed Cuban-French company, Pernod Ricard-Cuba Ron that markets Havana Club worldwide won the legal battle it has fought for more than 20 years with Bacardi for brand rights in the United States.  Until that litigation was resolved, Bacardi sold the brand in the U.S., while Pernod Ricard has marketed it in the rest of the world since the mixed company was formed in 1993.

     Havana Club International CEO Jerome Cottin-Bizonne said Monday that the company is preparing to open new markets, “including the U.S.,” which will only be accessible to a Cuban product once the embargo is lifted that the United States has imposed on the island for the last 50 years.

     Though the two countries announced the beginning of a diplomatic thaw almost two years ago after five decades at daggers drawn, the embargo remains in place and its elimination is the chief demand of the Cuban government within the new relations.

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