José Arechabala Aldama, a Spanish industrialist, established a distillery named La Vizcaya in 1878[4][5] in Cárdenas, Matanzas, Cuba.

However, several negotiations with American authorities secured a 22% quota on sugar imports into the United States, to be split proportionally among the Cuban producers.

[12] In 1932, Cuba exported 435,000 tons of sugar to the United States, 30% of which was refined by José Arechabala S.A.[2] When Prohibition was about to be repealed, another Category 5 hurricane hit Cárdenas.

[13] After the hurricane, the company began construction on a new rum production plant, which was inaugurated on March 19, 1934 (festivity of St. Joseph, the founder's patron).

[21] During the 1940s and the 1950s, the corporation continued its expansion into fuel production, a shipyard, a jam factory, a yeast plant, and a bagasse paper mill.

In 2004, one of the managers of the distillery later claimed to the US Senate that he fled the Cuban Revolution with nothing but the knowledge of the secret formula for making Havana Club rum.

The plant in Cárdenas had a swimming pool, social club, children's playground, Balneario (seaside resort) or sport fields (including tennis, golf or bowling, among others).

This symbol appeared on the labels of all Arechabala products (including the original Havana Club bottles) from the foundation of the distillery and adorned the barrels on the solera.

[32] By the end of 1954, another image change was produced and the label returned to a similar version of the original one, with the oak tree of Guernica and the wolves.