A year ago, I stumbled across this beer at my local bar and even the owner couldn't say for sure whether it was surreptitiously imported from Cuba. He was told he had to buy it in bulk.

It looks just like the Cuban Cristal he had on his shelf (which a patron smuggled in). A Palma billboard went up in Little Havana calling it "La Preferida de Cuba." It was signed Bucanero USA. Quick googling shows Cristal — now taken over by the Cuban gov — owns Bucanero S.A.

People asked: Is Cuba breaking the embargo?

It led to this story miamiherald.com/miami-com/rest…

When several new beers that purport to be Cuban hit South Florida store shelves in the last year, we had to investigate.

First were they really imported from Cuba? And second, which one tastes the best?

We ran a blind taste test: 🧵
miamiherald.com/miami-com/rest… Palma creatively copies the label of the Cuban beer, down to the tagline, “La Preferida de Cuba,” Cuba’s preferred beer. miamiherald.com/miami-com/rest…