Don Facundo Bacardi Masso emigrated to Cuba from Spain in 1830. Arriving as a wine merchant, he set up as a grocer in the 1840s and was experimenting with distillation by 1852, trying to improve the quality of the local rum by trying various technical experiments in distillation and ageing.

Cuba has become known as the "Isle of Rum", due to a combination of world-famous sugar cane (first introduced by Christopher Columbus in 1493), a favourable Caribbean climate, fertile soil, and the unique know-how of Cuban "Maestro Roneros" (master rum-makers). Sailors, swashbucklers and locals liked to use this exceptional sugarcane to make fermented nectar and "tafia" (an early type of rum).