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With so many gruesome tragedies taking place on U.S. soil lately, it’s embarrassingly easy to develop philanthropy fatigue or become overwhelmed by guilt or indecision about supporting one disaster relief campaign over another. Because my maternal family spent approximately 65 Christmas seasons in a row visiting the non-touristy northern Puerto Rican beach town of Vega Baja –including the first 25 years or so of my life – I worry deeply about the power of Hurricane Maria to set the already massively indebted American commonwealth back at least a generation.
Wondering how Bermuda-based international spirits conglomerate Bacardi (which, as the largest privately held spirits company in the world, owns not just Bacardi rum but 200 other global brands) was both faring and contributing to the community where it makes its flagship rum brand, I interviewed sixth-generation Bacardi family member Ignacio del Valle, who serves as regional president for the region from Panama. I caught him on Oct. 2, hours after he’d left Puerto Rico (and the same day the company named a new CEO), where he’d arrived several days earlier on one of the first inbound humanitarian flights. When we spoke, he’d just landed in Mexico to check on Bacardi facilities unsettled by two strong earthquakes in September. I’ve edited his answers for clarity and have added updates where necessary.
How much damage did Bacardi’s headquarters in hard-hit Cataño, Puerto Rico, sustain?
The damage is not material at all. We had some broken glasses, landscape uprooted and some power lines down. We expect the distillery to be up and running by next week (Update: the distillery is now operating at full capacity), and the reason we’re not fully functional is because of power outages. At the visitor center (which hosts 230,000 visitors per year), nothing major happened, and we’ll reopen on Nov. 1.
I read that your supply of aging rum in Puerto Rico, which represents 80% of the Bacardi produced in the world, wasn’t touched.
Our most precious gem in the facility is our barrels, and none of the barrels were lost, which is amazing. You can’t replace a barrel that has been sitting there for 10 or more years.
That said, how is the hurricane slowing sales or distribution?
Not much at all. We have product to ship now, and our port wasn’t damaged, but we’ve been waiting for the port facilities to open up. (Update: They’re open now.) We outsource our trucking from the distillery to the port, and that company is running again after a few days. We’re ready.
How much will the hurricane cost the company in terms of repairs and time lost?
We haven’t even calculated it. For us it’s secondary, as all of our efforts are focused on making sure all of our people are OK. Bacardi has 300 direct employees on the island, and a lot of them did lose their homes.
What are you doing to help your employees and residents in the communities where they live?
Together with the first lady of Puerto Rico and the mayor of Cataño, we were able to open our first emergency “Stop and Go” center for the people of Cataño. We’re scheduled to open two more by the end of the week, one in Toa Baja and one in San Juan. (Update: A company spokesperson says the San Juan center should open any day.) We fund 100% of those, and they’re the first of 36 that the first lady is planning for the island.
We’re going to host people during the day and supply them with food, water, charging stations, basic relief supplies, day care and entertainment like sports for the kids. We’ll also be helping them get in touch with family and loved ones. One of our commitments is to supply purified water in bulk that people can pick up when they go there.
We will use our own employees from the distillery and visitor center to run the Stop and Gos, as a lot of people in P.R. are concerned whether their companies are going to start paying their salaries while those companies are closed.
Why just daytime facilities?
It’s not a refugee camp. The mayors already have such relief camps.
We’ve been working with the mayors and the first lady since Hurricane Irma. There is a benefit concert coming up called Unidos for Puerto Rico; the first lady and governor asked us to hold the concert on Bacardi’s property because the convention centers and large venues are being used for refugees.
(Update: The concert is scheduled for Nov. 19. Bacardi Rum is also contributing $1.3 million to sponsor the TIDAL X concert in New York City on Oct. 17 and support its beneficiary charities. In addition, the rum is backing a benefit concert in Miami on October 16 performed by Major Lazer, an ad-hoc music group consisting of Diplo, Jillionaire and Walshy Fire.)
Are Bacardi employees off the island chipping in to help their Puerto Rican coworkers?
We set up an employee donation fund. In one week we’ve collected $59,000 (Update: now $96,000), and today every employee on our India team donated one vacation day’s worth of pay.
The love of the world toward Puerto Rico is incredible. We’re getting emails and support from all 170 countries where we distribute. Hurricane Irma devastated other islands 10 days before this, so Puerto Rico had taken in a lot of outside refugees and sent a lot of emergency supplies there. So Maria came along, and we as a community were not ready because we had already shared so much with the other islands.
What about Bacardi workers leaving P.R. temporarily or permanently?
What I have seen is fellow employees trying to get their children and the elderly out for one or two months so they don’t have to worry about them managing without electricity, water or power. A lot of the young working-class people are very much committed to staying and rebuilding. Immediately I think it’s safer to have children and the elderly out of there, but we’ll have them back in due time.
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I conducted my interview with del Valle 11 days ago. I’d originally planned to run the story the following morning but decided to hold it out of respect for the victims of the prior evening’s gun massacre in Las Vegas. Before I had a chance to turn my attention back to it, wildfires in Northern California, potentially caused by historical negligence on the part of PSE&G, flamed out of control and have so far demolished at least a handful of wineries and at least 3,500 homes and businesses, though not, as I understand, any breweries or distilleries in the exact spot where the contemporary craft beer movement first sparked to life four decades ago.
By the time you see this, Puerto Rico’s suffering may be old news (Trump's latest tweets not withstanding), and lord knows something worse may happen between my typing these letters and the resulting words passing before your eyes. But it truly behooves us as a community to resist normalizing the growing scale of these occurrences or glossing over the very real people they’re victimizing. For them, it will never be old news.
Click here to donate to the Puerto Rican first lady's recovery efforts.
