Haiti's famous rum factory rebuilt

Haiti's already impoverished economy suffered a hammer in the earthquake. A government report says the private sector absorbed 70 percent of the total damage and losses. Now, Haitians are painstakingly trying to rebuild their businesses back to pre-quake level.

At Barbancourt rum factory, hundreds of liters of premium rum seeped into soil in the January 12th earthquake.

Potential export revenue for the famous manufacturer evaporated into the humid tropical air.

Thierry Gardere, General Director of Barbancourt Rum, said, "We never thought about that. We thought about floods, hurricanes. We know that an earthquake can happen but never with this magnitude or strength."

Gardere,whose own home was also destroyed, estimates the company's total losses from the catastrophic quake, at 4 million US dollars.

The factory, fed by sugar cane fields where this year's harvest was already underway, is now producing rum again.

But Gardere is faced with the daunting task of rebuilding a business based on aging.

"Actually, unfortunately, we are not able to bottle because we have to put back our aging rooms in order, and we put back the pipes, and also the barrels in place. So we have to reconstitute our system for aging." Thierry Gardere said.

Barbancourt's rum sales had doubled over the last five years to 3 million liters a year, carving out a niche brand name in the international liquor industry.

With the losses to the aged stocks, sales this year are expected to fall to around 2.5 million liters. And it will take four to five years to fully rebuild the reserve.

"The worst part is that we have aged rum and we can't replace it. We can't say that we're going to produce it and that tomorrow we'll have a new product. We have to age it and to do that it will take years." Thierry Gardere said.

As his business slowly gets backs to normal, Gardere is looking at ways of protecting his aging rooms, filled with racks of rum-filled oak casks, from future earthquakes.