Our mornings were filled with lectures and learning sessions- part of our visa requirements for culture immersion. Allison and Robert attended Spanish 101: A brief overview of words and phrases. Mother and I attended the story telling class. Then we all attended the Cuba Overview lecture which focused on disembarkation, customs, currency, how best to interact with Cubans, a brief history and cultural overview. There fellow travelers learned about the 10% embargo on US currency, luckily our friend Lourdes who works in Fathoms social media section clued us in ahead of time so we brought Canadian dollars. Cuba has an interesting double currency system with CUC- Cuban Convertible and CUP- Cuban Peso. The CUC is used for tourists only and is decorated with monuments, while the CUP is the local currency worth 25% of the CUC and decorated with people. Many Cubans are paid between 30-40 CUCs per month, and rely heavily on tips. We were advised on proper tipping and why using US currency was detrimental to the local economy (We will let you know if we were successful in exchanging CAD to CUC in Santiago without additional fees).
For lunch we headed back to the dining room and chose to sit at a communal table. We had a lovely lunch with two other couples: one was an elderly couple from Chattanooga Tennessee and the other middle aged from Riverside. We all shared travel stories and laughter. Our afternoon included a boring talk on Santiago de Cuba, the lecturer was one of the Impact guides and public speaking was not his forte. We ducked out early and headed upstairs to The Glass House wine bar for a private Rum Tasting class. Our class was facilitated by Mike the bar officer and sommelier. I can't say that I will be sipping rum anytime soon, but I will continue to enjoy my Cuba libre and mojitos.
There was a short history of rum, which started with pirates and the myth surrounding the name. Many believe rum is a shorted version of rumbullion an Olde English word for commotion because after drinking copious amounts of rum one would be prone to cause a commotion. We learned that rum is a byproduct of sugar cane. Once the sugar cane is juiced and boiled down there is molasses. The molasses is then fermented and flavors are added by the master blender. Each rum producer has its own master blender and the job is handed down through family as the keep the blend a secret. We also learned that rum is aged in oak barrels previously used by American bourbon distillers. The rum can only be kept in an oak barrel for upto 8 years. Thus rum cannot be marketed as aged 15 years, but will be called 15 solera. A solera the combined total years a rum has spent in any oak cask.
We tasted 4 rums: Bacardi which was founded in Cuba by Emilio Bacardi Mureau a local to Santiago de Cuba, who moved the plant to Puerto Rico in the early 1960s. The Bacardi was the only white rum we tasted. White rum is synonymous with Puerto Rican rum regardless of where it is produced. The Bacardi was awful as you might expect. Folks around the room described it as nail polish remover, hair spray, or college and regret. White rum is produced exclusively for mixing. Allison and I chose not to taste the plain Bacardi and saved our taster for the end of glass to be mixed with pineapple juice.
The other rums were all golden rums which is synonymous with Jamaican rum regardless of where it is made. The first up was Appleton. The master blender describes this run as woody and fruity, caramel in color. I can't say it tasted any better than the Bacardi. Mike suggested it be used in mixed drinks as well. The next rum was a step up- Brugal XV a Jamaican style rum distilled in the Dominican Republic. The master blender describes this rum as deep caramel in color, oaky in flavor, with a nose of ripe banana and dark roast coffee. One could taste and smell the improvement, but I couldn't imagine sipping this as a liquor. The final and finest rum was Zacapa from Guatemala. It was rich and complex, and several brandy/cognac/whiskey drinkers commented they could sip this in lieu of their usual drink.
We learned that after Bacardi left Cuba two rums are sought out as authentic and worth taking home: Santiago which is produced in Santiago de Cuba, and Havana Club which is widely available all over the island.
After the rum tasting we continued to enjoy rum drinks on the lido deck for the afternoon. Followed by dinner. The storm continued to grow around us, and outside deck areas were rapidly closing. We finished dinner early and headed back to our cabins. Initially we planned to participate in the trivia night- but the sea proved too strong for all the ladies. Robert ventured upstairs and sought out some Dramamine only to find everyone else was in similar bad shape. The night only grew more tense as the waves and wind grew stronger. Mom and I clicked on the TV to drown out the sounds of the storm, aside from bad British TV we found Despicable Me on the family channel. We found out the next morning Allison and Robert did the same.
We heard later from crew members that the Captain said during a staff meeting that the duration and intensity of the storm was nothing like she had ever experienced. Often there is a few hours of heavy winds, waves, causing rough conditions, but never days long as we had experienced.
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