La Tropical: Cuba’s oldest beer makes comeback in US

Global Business

It’s been 128 years since Cuba began brewing its first beer and 56 years since that original brew was enjoyed by residents of the island. Now, La Tropical is making a comeback across the Florida Straits.

CCTV America’s Nitza Soledad Perez has the story of the Miami businessmen making it happen.

After 17 years and countless hours of research at the University of Miami Cuban Heritage Collection, Manny Portuondo embarked on the project of bringing back to life Cuba’s oldest beer, La Tropical.

La Tropical was originally founded in Cuba in 1888. By the beginning of the Cuban revolution, it accounted for about 60 percent of all beer consumed in Cuba. But, Cuba’s communist government seized the factory and its surrounding gardens.

1960 was the last year that La Tropical beer was produced in Cuba. Now in 2016 the oldest Cuban beer writes a new page of history in Miami.

The Cuban government kept producing its own version until 2008, but Portuondo said it was not the same brew.

“When you think about that and when you think how it all vanished I felt that it was my heritage I felt it was my duty to resurrect that beer,” he added.

Portuondo joined forces with an heir to the original La Tropical, Ramon Blanco Herrera. The 70-year-old Cuban exile carefully guards the relics of his past, among them: a certificate for stock in Cerveceria La Tropical brewery, signed by the vice president, his grandfather, in 1954.