Cuban Colada: Build Bridges, Drink Rum

A second Cuban oriented blog has launched from the writers over at the Miami Herald. This one is from Frances Robles and is called Cuban Colada. I've been over there typing my thoughts on each post seemingly alone, but I know there are more reading. Here is a sample of the types of things you can only really get from someone so in the loop on Cuba:

Build Bridges, Drink Rum
The Spanish daily El Pais on Sunday published an interview with Roman Catholic Cardenal Jaime Ortega, archbishop of Havana, titled, "At this delicate moment, Cuba needs dialogue, not pressure."

The archbishop's advice: build bridges, dialogue and reconciliation."The path is dialogue, with pressure you get nowhere."

To read the entire interview in Spanish, click here:
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In other news last week, Cuba's Havana Club rum brand sold a record 2.6 million cases last year, fueled by a 30 percent sales surge in the island's domestic market, company officials told The Associated Press.

Enrique Noste, Havana Club's director of marketing for Cuba, said the company's rums now rank 34th out of the world's 100 top-selling spirits.

Most sales are on the island itself. Some 960,000 cases of Havana Club were sold in 2006 and sales are expected to top a million this year, Noste said.

That's a whole lot of booze being guzzled up by locals. Is there some sort of celebration going on we don't know about?

"It's a sector that is very popular with the population," Noste said. "Undoubtedly, it's a type of drink that has been a big hit with the Cuban people and it's the base of growth for us. We have had growth in other sectors, but it's the strongest.''