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 [Events, Media & Communications](/CSR-News/events-media-communications)

 # Journey Through the 163-Year Legacy of Family-Owned Bacardi

 

##### Discover the company’s humble origins in Santiago de Cuba, its resilience through hardships, and its path to become the world’s largest privately held international spirits company.

 

 

 Feb 4, 2025 8:05 AM ET

  Campaign:  [Heritage](/news/campaign/heritage)  ![Old Bacardi label](/sites/default/files/2025-01/Legacy_Bacardi_13125.png)

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The story of Bacardi began on February 4, 1862, when Don Facundo Bacardí Massó opened a small tin-roofed distillery on the outskirts of Santiago de Cuba. He had long envisioned creating a smooth, light-bodied rum for all Cubans to enjoy. After close to a decade of experimentation and pioneering the rum-making process, his dream became a reality when he introduced a clear-bodied rum the likes of which the world had never seen before: BACARDÍ® rum.

Ever the entrepreneur, Don Facundo knew that a great product needed great branding. One day, his wife Doña Amalia spotted fruit bats hanging in the original distillery rafters. A symbol of good health, fortune and family unity, Doña Amalia recognized their presence as a good omen and suggested the adoption of the bat to the label of her husband’s budding rum business. Soon, locals in Cuba began to ask for ‘*el ron del murcielago*’, and the rum of the bat was born.

As the love of BACARDÍ spread around the world, the company established distilleries in Mexico and Puerto Rico in the 1930s. These two rum distilleries were the company’s saving grace when all Bacardi operations and assets in Cuba were illegally confiscated without compensation by revolutionary government forces on October 14, 1960, just shy of the company’s 100th anniversary. Devastated, the family fled Cuba in exile to rebuild the company elsewhere around the world.

Despite this monumental setback, the company and family came back stronger than ever.   
Today, after 163 remarkable years of rum, cocktails and connection, the legacy of Don Facundo lives on. Bacardi remains family-owned and is proudly headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda, now boasting more than 200 brands and labels. To discover more about the Bacardi legacy, its brands, and learn how to join the family, visit [www.bacardilimited.com](https://www.bacardilimited.com).



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 [![Bacardi logo](/sites/default/files/Clients/Bacardi_gold_HiRes.jpg)](/profiles/bacardi-limited)

 



 

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