The Barman's sixth sense [antikvár]

THE HISTORIAN In one hand he lovingly holds a runn-on-the-rocks, made with amber Anejo. He swirls it around, and the ice tinkles cheerfully in its sea of liquid sunshine. In his other hand, just as lovingly, he holds a cigar, an aromatic Havana, as genuinely Cuban as the rum he sips. His hair, if one wants to be fanciful, could be compared to a Daiquiri in color. This tireless traveller has smoked fine cigars and enjoyed the art of the cocktail on many continents. He has watched barmen, their hands moving with skill and dedication, fashion their sparkling and refreshing masterpieces at the Tamanaco in Venezuela and the Reforma in Mexico City; at the Chicote in Madrid and Maxim's in Paris; on the Via Veneto and in Picadilly; in New Delhi and in Berlin; in Moscow's Hotel Ukraine and in Havana's Floridita Bar. It was here, in the last-named, that he met Ernest Hemingway in 1934 and began a friendship that was to last till the American's death. Like his old friend, he is a writer and journalist, and an essayist too. He has just finished writing a biography of Cuban rum. His name is Fernando G. Campoamor. His replies to our questions are punctuated by sips of Havana Club and puffs on his Montecristo. "Why Cuban rum?" "Because it's a Cuban personage whose history was still unwritten, a personage that identifies us, here and abroad, just as much as our tobacco does, or our music, or the Morro Castle lighthouse. For years now I've been stuffing envelopes with clippings, notes and pictures on Cuban topics; the general heading I've had in mind has been Cuba, and the finished work will have an all-embracing title. Master de Cubania, 'The Office of Cubanism'. Remember when we studied Spanish literature, those old classics, the Master de Clerecía and the Master de Juglaría, the collections made by the clergy and by the troubadors, in cultured language and popular speech respectively? Master means metier, ministry, office or calling. Well, here I use it to mean the symbols of Cubanism, like the canoe, the royal palm, the machete, the guayabera, the sunsún, our hummingbird, the quitrín, our typical 19th-century