Home of Bacardi and History

A Day in San Juan

To say I was excited to visit San Juan, Puerto Rico would be an understatement.  San Juan was high on my list of places to visit, because when I turned twenty one I made a list of breweries and distilleries I wanted to visit.  It was not a long list, and having already made it to the Guinness St James Gate Brewery in Ireland and the Markers Mark Distillery in Kentucky I only had one left on the list: the Bacardi Distillery in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  With the one day I had in San Juan on a cruise I made the Bacardi Distillery Tour my prime objective, although there would be time for more than that.

Waiting for my tour of the Bacardi Distillery to start in Puerto Rico.

As we were visiting San Juan as part of a cruise, our first option for getting to the distillery was by going through the cruise line, which offered the tour at an obscene price.  We decided to try for the distillery on our own.  Following the advice garnered from online chatrooms, we disembarked the ship as soon as we could and walked about fifty feet away to the ferry that would take us across the bay.  As expensive as the ships tour was, the ferry was ridiculously cheap, a few dollars a person.  The ferries cross the bay fairly often and we did not have to wait long for one to pick us up.  We disembarked the ferry on the far side of the bay to find a line of cabs all waiting to shuttle visitors to the famous distillery for a few dollars more, and after ten minutes we had arrived.

Riding past some displays on the Bacardi trolley, en route to the main tour exhibit.

At the distillery we paid for the most expensive part of the whole endeavor, the tour itself, which cost a whole twelve dollars per person.  Reveling in the fact that our entire excursion to the distillery cost less than half of what the ship was charging, we bought two extra drinks with souvenir glasses (two drinks are already included in the tour price) to sip on while we waited for our tour to start.  The tour was less about seeing the active distillery and more about the history of the Bacardi family, their product, the rum-making process, and a class on how to make cocktails developed specifically for Bacardi rum, my favorite part of the tour of course.  Little known is that the daiquiri, not the frozen kind so often found in tropical areas, but the original martini-like sour cocktail, and the cuba libre, coke with Bacardi and a squeeze of lime, were designed by the Bacardi company.  

So much Bacardi on display on the tour.

As much as I was looking forward to the distillery tour, it only required two hours, including waiting for the tour to start and enjoying our samples.  After arriving back at the cruise port, we dropped off our new souvenir glasses on the ship, ate some lunch, and headed back out into San Juan in search of something else to do with our abundant time.  

Downtown modern San Juan as seen from the old fort Castillo de San Cristobal.

We walked around the city, the older portion of the city that is, stopping here and there to rest on a bench or grab a beer in a bar.  Eventually we ran into something far more intriguing to fill our time than just wandering around, one the forts located in old San Juan, which is also a national park.

The Castillo de San Cristobal is integrated into the newer areas of San Juan.

Visitors have the option of buying a pass to both forts or just one.  Since we only had about two hours left we chose to just buy the pass to the fort we stumbled upon: Castillo de San Cristobal.  It was fairly large as forts go, and contained a few unique characteristics which set it apart from the many other first I've visited.  My favorite was the extensive tunnel system connecting various areas of the fort.  Only one of these tunnels is currently open to the public, but it gave just a hint of the effectiveness of the tunnel system.  We moved quickly from one far end of the fort to the other in a few minutes, much less time than it would have required had we used the traditional passage ways.  The tunnel was short and dark, making my tall self a little wary of bumping my head on an unseen object.  I managed to traverse the expanse without incident though.

Our cruise ship can be seen from much of the fort.  Cannon balls are piled on this roof.

One of my other favorite features of the Castillo de San Cristobal were the views.  From various perches we could see the tall buildings of the Bacardi Distillery across the bay, new San Juan down the coast, and the other fort perched on the peninsula.  The sun was getting low and contrast of light and dark was as stark as the new buildings of downtown against the old forts.

San Juan has a beautiful coastline, and prefect for defenses too.

Overall I really enjoyed Puerto Rico, and I want to return.  I have a few ideas of what I will do next time I land on that island, more history and a giant satellite dish featured in a James Bond movie.  Even writing this, I feel like researching another trip.