Bats in the rafters of the first distillery, in Santiago de Cuba, became the symbol the brand now takes all the way to Halloween
This month, Bacardí put limited-edition glow-in-the-dark Halloween bottles on sale in the UK and the United States, according to The Spirits Business. In the UK, it is Carta Blanca with a special design, at £19 for a 700 ml bottle; in the US, a bottle of Superior white rum with a ghost on it. Lesley-Anne Cohen, the rum's marketing manager, told the magazine that the brand has its own place at Halloween with its bat, limited-edition bottles and connection to club culture. The animal has been on the label for more than a century, and the story begins in a tin-roofed distillery in Cuba.
According to the company's official history, the Spaniard Facundo Bacardí Massó arrived in Santiago de Cuba in 1830, at age 15, to join his brothers. After losing a wine business to earthquakes, a cholera epidemic and looting, he spent about ten years developing his way of making rum, with the support of his wife, Amalia Moreau. On February 4, 1862, he bought a small tin-roofed distillery in the city, the date the company considers its founding.
The bats were already living there. Fruit bats hung from the rafters, drawn, according to VinePair, by the smell of molasses. Instead of driving them out, the family let them stay. Doña Amalia saw the animals as a sign of good luck and chose the bat as the brand's emblem, Bacardí says. VinePair reports that customers began asking for “el ron del murciélago,” the rum of the bat. The earliest known version of the design dates from the 1890s, when it became the official logo.
Beyond the symbol, Facundo left methods the brand says it still uses: a single yeast strain, taken from Cuban cane fields, to control fermentation; two base spirits, one richer and one lighter, blended afterward; charcoal filtration; and aging in oak barrels. At the turn of the 20th century, according to the company, American mining engineer Jennings Cox created the Daiquiri with Carta Blanca, and the Cuba Libre appeared in Havana two years later.
On October 14, 1960, Cuba's revolutionary government seized all of Bacardí's facilities and assets on the island without compensation, and much of the family went into exile. The international headquarters moved to Bermuda in 1965, and the brand's largest distillery is in Puerto Rico, nicknamed the Cathedral of Rum in 1958. The bats still get attention. According to VinePair, rum producers tend to respect them because they pollinate sugarcane and eat pests, and Bacardí expanded a pollinator garden in Puerto Rico that is home to seven bat species.
Sources: The Spirits Business (October 19, 2026), Bacardí (accessed October 19, 2026), VinePair (June 18, 2021).
