Among the specific restructuring steps the brothers took, Henrique ticks off, "We cut employees from 600 to 264. We've lowered costs. We've been much more effective at handling inventory. We've increased prices. We increased exports; we'd been very focused on domestic business and production and thought we were focused internationally­ because we had a guy in Spain, Italy, and Peru. But there wasn't a concerted effort towards that. We weren't even in the United States three years ago.

"On the domestic market we rebuilt our name. The presence of the sons of the owner out in the streets, doing the work and talking with clients, has really helped the esteem of the company and raised confidence. They hadn't seen the owner for a long time. They got the wrong message.

"And then there's a whole branch of activities we started to do to lift up the category: a lot of education on rum, product launches, tastings - high-end things. In other markets we've seen whiskey take an important part of markets and consumers' minds, and then vodka. We've seen tequila go boom. And I've been hearing that rum is the next category to rise, grow, be fashionable. Definitely, there are more people out there now prepared and educated enough to appreciate our product."

In targeting the upscale "sipping spirits" market, Ludford says, it was a sound strategy to introduce Santa Teresa to the U.S. through its highest-quality, highest-priced rum, 1796, rather than starting with a competitively priced product. "By leading with their prestige product, they set themselves apart from the pack of rum labels crowding the shelves," he explains. "They identified themselves as a serious spirits producer. In this way, the additional Santa Teresa products would be greeted with curiosity rather than with the yawns usually reserved for $15 rums."