Posted on 04/30/2017 7:22:24 PM PDT by Olog-hai
Pennsylvania’s Cuban rum run got its start in a chance meeting last fall in the parking lot in front of the state Capitol.
“‘You know, we have rum,’” a visiting Cuban government liaison told state Sen. Chuck McIlhinney, who was walking to his car when he was introduced to her as the senator whose committee oversees how alcohol is sold in Pennsylvania. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah, we should buy some.’”
A few months later, the agency that controls Pennsylvania’s 600-plus state-owned wine and liquor stores is working to lift the United States’ 55-year-old embargo on Cuban rum, one of the island nation’s best-known products.
A purchase of Cuban rum by the sixth-most populous state would be, by all accounts, the biggest shipment of Cuban rum to the U.S. since John F. Kennedy was president, and could pave the way for the nation’s private spirits wholesalers to follow suit.
The embargo is on virtually all imports from and exports to Cuba, including rum. If Pennsylvania is successful, it would be the first import of a product produced entirely by the Communist state. The administration of former President Barack Obama allowed imports of charcoal produced by worker-owned cooperatives. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
They met in parking lot: “Come on up to room and we’ll talk it over. You bring a sample of the rum, I’ve the Coke and limes.”
Last year Pennsylvania also decided to “make it’s own wine”.
Well this presents an issue. When a state owns all of the liquor, and regulates everything about it - having their wine is a very, very unfair competitive situation.
Then, it turns out, the wine is made in Napa Valley. Corrupt to the core.
I’m pretty sure it’s unConstitutional for a single state to make deals with foreign powers.
Liberal Morons! Yes, let’s fund the world’s largest prison.
I also understand they have a pencil factory as well..."Pennsylvania Pencil". They deliver them in a highly visible vehicle called the Pencil-van.
If Cuban rum is anything like Cuban cigars I’ll pass.
That joke was so bad that I actually pictured a rock lobster telling it.
Pencil-van..ayuh
(Downeast slang for “yes”)
I hit the abuse button, but considered otherwise.
Some years ago, I sampled what was purported to be Cuban rum (I trust the giver, but this was Key West and yes, alcohol may have been involved 😇). Not interested in either one. Life's too short to drink harsh rum.
It's a really good aged rum - very nice for sipping straight. In the big picture, though, it's no better than Mount Gay Extra Old or El Dorado 15. I can get either of those easily at local shops.
1959 was a long time ago; the rest of the world hasn't been standing still waiting for the Cubans to come to their senses.
I rarely drink rum, I am more of a Bourbon drinker.
But if I do drink rum I drink capitalist Rum.
;)
Good, but given that PA’s liquor laws are not quite yet up to 20th [sic] century convention, it is a certainty that a kickback or corruption of some kind is the foundation of this deal.
It’s impossible that the environment that includes the requirement that people have to buy beer at a separate cash register in the few grocery stores in the state that are allowed to sell it, is also so “free market” that they’re in the vanguard of busting the Cuba embargo.
I don’t think there is any ban on Cuban rum up here in Ontario Canada but you would be hard pressed to find any in the liquor stores here. There are plenty of rums sold but I think the mix would be similar to what is available stateside.
My mistake. I went online to the LCBO general listings for rum and 5 of the 157 rum selections were a brand called Club Havana from Cuba.
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