Cuban Rum

Havana Club Rum

Guy I used to work with showed up at lunch today and told us this story about the time he went to Cuba ten, maybe twenty years ago. He went with a Cuban friend of his who wanted him to bring back some Cuban rum as it was really cheap, like $7 for a liter. So he stopped at the duty free shop and picked up a couple of liters and they wrapped them all up in official looking red tape and he got on the plane. He got to Miami and his flight to Dallas was delayed so much that he when he got to Dallas he found his flight to Portland had already left. The airline offered to put him up in a hotel, but what's he going to do with these two bottles of liquor? This was before the TSA, so he had just carried them on the plane in Havana. He didn't have any checked luggage, so he was kind of in a dilemma. If he left the airport, they wouldn't let him bring the liquor back in, so he's desperately trying to figure out what to do. He could buy a suitcase and send them as checked luggage, but that would have meant paying the airline $30 to check a bag, which kind of defeats the whole purpose. He asks the guy at the airline counter and he asks the cashier at the knick-knack store, but they can't help him. Then he spots the chapel. There is nobody there and there is a cupboard in the back of the room, so he stashes the bottles there. He spends the night in the hotel and when he returns the next day he finds that the bottles are still there, so he picks them up and is on his way.

As I was writing this, I realized that the only way that this story makes any sense is if he didn't leave the secure area of the airport in Miami. He would have had to clear customs there, but he might not have left the secure area. But it's also weird that Cuban security would let him on the airplane with two bottles of hooch, and he was concerned that American security wouldn't.