I’m sitting on a green sofa in a 1930s neoclassical villa, mojito in hand, enshrouded by darkness bar the flickering candlelight and a lamp powered by a humming back-up generator. Soon, a Cuban a cappella band emerges through the French veranda doors, and starts singing.
The singers are the talented Cuban Choral Quartet. The setting is Casa Adela, in the heart of Havana’s Vedado neighbourhood which we are seeing for the first time during one of Havana’s power blackouts. Between love songs by Cuban composer Miguel Matamoros and salsa classics I begin to think about my impression of Cuba so far (albeit only 48 hours into a week-long trip), and how Havana is a place that’s easy to romanticise but quick to remind you of its realities.
Though, through these realities (and perhaps as part of them), and while things may not run on time (or sometimes, not at all), nothing is half-hearted here. Cuba is vivacious and its people are stoic, reinventing the country through harsh times with their creativity. So, until the lights power back on, the performers keep on singing and the rum is strong and flows in plenty.
The Music
The next day, we head back over to the Vedado neighbourhood in our fleet of vintage cars, including a 1955 Ford Fairlane and a circa-1950s convertible Chevrolet – each immaculately kept – to the house of influential Cuban singer, Beatriz Márquez. Her love songs, distinctively rich voice, and bolero beats have been heard around the world, becoming a distinct international sound of Cuba. The sound of the grand piano and her unwavering voice pours out of the open windows while the hot Havana sun floods in and warms the painted tiles as she performs to us in her front room. “Music represents the solidarity of Havana’s community,” Beatriz explains as I afterwards ask her what the art form means to her, adding “music is like a feeling”.
Music is just one of the creative things that keeps Havana moving, and another is rum. And we quickly discover wherever there is music, there is often rum.
Old Havana
This is what my week in Cuba largely consisted of: music, Havana Club rum, art, and a decorative tapestry of architectural styles that paint the storied history of the capital, Havana. Here, fading licks of pastel paint across baroque, neoclassical, art nouveau dating from the 1920s to the 1950s rub shoulders on the same street and mark the passage of time, Cuba’s version of carbon-dating. Once the ornate homes of the international upper class, most properties became state-owned after the 1959 revolution. However, more and more Cubans now have the opportunity to own their own houses, helping to bolster the local communities, our tour guide explains.
Stepping away from the commercial whirl of London – its neon ads and glowing screens – Havana, or La Habana as locals call it, feels like slipping into another time. There are no billboards here, no offensive city noise, only the sound of music drifting through shuttered doors and the strong scent of Cuban cigar smoke mingling with the heat rising off terracotta tiles. But it’s not contrived, it is just life; a street vendor sells fruit under a palm tree in an 18th century-built colonial palazzo, then turn a corner and stumble upon a guitarist strumming a soulful son cubano, while an old chevrolet whistles by in a proud coat of peacocking pink. Street by street layers of history are peeled back and revealed: there’s no doubt why Old Havana is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Restaurant & Bar Scene
It’s not just the architecture that serves as a reminder of bygone eras on every corner, but the bars too, with their legacies of Hollywood’s hedonistic heyday. Hemingway penned many of his novels fuelled by his namesake Hemingway Daiquiri (an extra strong daiquiri) at El Floridita, which remains the same as the day Hemingway stumbled out of it for the last time. Meanwhile, handwritten signatures and framed photographs of A-listers from Nat King Cole to Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren plaster La Bodeguita Del Medio’s bright blue walls, which among these famous faces, also saw the birthplace of the mojito. Still, new bars are making their way into the scene including the trendy rooftop spot Sibarita which serves a mean Cachucha with Havana Club Cuban Smoky.
A highlight is La Guardia: tucked down a seemingly residential street, this once twelve-apartment block is now unsuspectingly one of Havana’s signature spots. The top floor offers a sultry open-air bar with sweeping views over the city, where Cuban cigars pair with a fresh Canchánchara (lime, honey, and a white Havana Club rum) just that little bit better. Down a floor, a large terrace lit by strings of festoon lights hosts long family-style dining tables, while indoors, dining rooms are decorated with religious iconography and artwork. Despite all the pre-trip warnings I received about the food in Cuba, the food here was surprisingly good, offering a simple choice between the meat or fish dish being served that day.
Cuba is not famed as a foodie hotspot, largely down to the trade embargo-caused shortages. This, paired with the wide availability and importance of rum, means it’s not unusual for the drinks lists at restaurants to be longer than the food menus. However, when you pick the right spots, you won’t go hungry. Head to Antojos for plates of croquettes with charcoal grilled chicken and fish to share on an al fresco table, to Loft Bahia for fresh seafood overlooking the blue harbour waters, and to ChaChaCha for classic Cuban fare, especially the Langosta Caribeña.
There’s no doubt that bars are easier to find in Havana than early-morning cafés, so if breakfast is important to you, we recommend staying in a beautiful guesthouse like Casa Adela or La Reserva (both in the Vedado neighbourhood) or a hotel like Mystique Havana (the Royalton Habana is a modern option) – who all serve plates of fresh local fruit and eggs cooked how you like each morning.
The Rum
In Havana, rum is everywhere you turn: Cuba is still one of Havana Club’s most important markets. Just as Old Havana is officially recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site, in November 2022 the know-how of the Cuban rum maestros was officially recognised by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage. We enjoyed this expertise firsthand at Havana Club’s San José distillery (closed to the public) and at the El Museo del Ron Havana Club (open to the public, complete with two bars where you can taste different Havana Club blends as well as cups of freshly pressed sugar cane, the base of all rum). Currently, there are five official Havana Club maestros, each of whom have trained for decades before their merit is awarded with this title. This includes Salomé Alemán Carrizo, the first ever female Havana Club Maestra, who has helped to inspire three female students currently studying at Havana Club. “The flavours of rum relate to your sensory memory,” Maestro Asbel Morales explains; and so, drinking it is sensorial too, something that comes with rituals almost as sacred as the process of making it.
Salome Aleman Carrizo © MATTHIEU GARÇON
First, no matter the price or rarity of the bottle, a splash of rum is thrown into the air as an offering to the saints. Then, the experience begins. Salomé raises her glass and talks us through how she samples Havana Club, from starting with sight that gives away the number of years it’s been aged, to the “tears” that form on the side of the glass giving away its texture, to the scent of rum on the nose, the feel of it on the hands, and notes in the mouth during and after a sip to, finally, the scent of an empty glass. “All Cubans need are family, close friends, and a good bottle of Havana Club,” someone else adds, as I ask how rum is enjoyed best. In recipes? With dessert? “In good company” is the simple answer I am given.
The Art
José Villa Soberón at his studio.
This sensory attitude goes hand in hand with the creative pulse of the city. It is not easy for artists in Havana, painter Vicente Hernández Hernández explains on a visit to his studio. His hyper surrealist paintings distort interpretations of Havana, his hometown, and in many of them, America lingers just in sight on the horizon. But still, artists work across the city. Our visit coincides with the 15th edition of the Havana Biennale titled Shared Horizons which was founded in the early 1980s to promote Latin-American and Caribbean artists by displaying work in palazzos, galleries, and houses across Havana. We also stop by the factory-based store of Clandestina, the first Cuban fashion brand to sell internationally, the beautifully kept Grand Havana home of Pamela Ruiz and contemporary visual artist Damián Aquiles who paints and fashions colourful installations out of discarded metals, and the studio of sculptor José Villa Soberón. The latter displays an iron statue (made from a terracotta cast that takes four to six months to shape by hand) of the Cuban Ballet’s infamous prima ballerina, Alicia Alonso.
La Reserva, Vedado
The dance company’s home, Gran Teatro de La Habana, was once one of the biggest cultural names and draws to Havana, and while it still is, it has been joined by cultural hub-slash-nightclub Fábrica de Arte Cubano (FAC) which leads the way new generations of Cuban (and international) creatives interact with and interpret art. Immense in scale, you could spend hours lost in one of the side rooms where a DJ spins old-school Cuban salsa, before turning around to live music and comedy performances down hallways full of photographs and paintings: where the only thing that comes as readily as the art is the rum.
The five Havana Club maestros at the Grand Havana home of Pamela Ruiz and contemporary visual artist Damián Aquiles
Rum in Cuba is more than just a drink. It’s the story of a people who have lived through revolution, hardship, and joy, always with music on their lips and a glass in hand. As Don José Navarro – the late Havana Club Primo Maestro – once said, rum is “a cultural heritage that is transmitted from maestro to maestro, from heart to heart, from Cuban to Cuban,” and so “you only need to look at it to fall in love, but tasting it, you’ll remember it forever.”
This quote may be about Havana Club rum, but it could just as easily be about Cuba itself.
We may earn a commission if you buy something from any affiliate links on our site.
Any Questions or Tips to add?