{"id":154343,"date":"2025-06-03T08:32:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T08:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/154343\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T08:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T08:32:11","slug":"shortage-of-popular-drink-rocks-spain-and-greece-with-millions-of-uk-tourists-warned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/154343\/","title":{"rendered":"Shortage of popular drink rocks Spain and Greece with millions of UK tourists warned"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A lack of sugar has thrown Cuba\u2019s rum industry into crisis &#8211; with UK tourists facing a shortage on European Union shores, too.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/0_spain2.jpg\" alt=\"Shortage of popular drink rocks Spain and Greece with millions of UK tourists warned\" loading=\"eager\"  \/>Shortage of popular drink rocks Spain and Greece with millions of UK tourists warned<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">A shortage of a popular drink has rocked Spain and Greece &#8211; with millions of UK tourists warned. A lack of sugar has thrown Cuba\u2019s rum industry into crisis &#8211; with UK tourists facing a shortage on <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/all-about\/european-union\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">European Union<\/a> shores, too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">This year\u2019s tiny harvest casts doubt on the spirit\u2019s recent resurgence, once a bright spot in the island\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Cuba\u2019s state-run monopoly, Azcuba, is likely to produce just 165,000 metric tonnes of sugar this year. That compares with harvests of 8m in the late 1980s. Michael Bustamante, chair of Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, described the situation as \u201cdismal\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \"><a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/news\/midlands-news\/uk-faces-spanish-scorcher-heatwave-31774356\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong class=\"Strong_strong__e2x35\">READ MORE UK faces &#8216;Spanish scorcher&#8217; heatwave with 31C as exact date it starts announced<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">\u201cYou have to go back to the 19th century to find numbers this low,\u201d he said. With the supply of molasses drying up, all this work is threatened. \u201cI think the fourth quarter will be particularly tough,\u201d said the executive. \u201cThere won\u2019t be any alcohol.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">\u201cThe sugar production numbers have been steadily decreasing for the better part of 20 years, but particularly over the last five,\u201d said Bustamante. \u201cI think it\u2019s just as clear a signal as you can get over the dire straits of the economy overall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Azcuba planned to produce 265,000 metric tons of raw sugar this year. But as the milling season has neared its end, output was running about 100,000 tons short, a Reuters estimate found, based on official media reports and sources with knowledge of the situation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">An authentic Cuban rum must use alcohol produced from Cuban cane sugar, but plunging production has unsettled the industry, a foreign businessman told Reuters, requesting anonymity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">\u201cBecause rum must age, we have been using our stocks and the concern is, will we have new stocks looking forward?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Cuba was once the world\u2019s top sugar exporter, churning out 8 million metric tons of raw sugar in 1989. The collapse of its former benefactor, the Soviet Union, sparked a steady decline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lack of sugar has thrown Cuba\u2019s rum industry into crisis &#8211; with UK tourists facing a shortage&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-154343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114618508690924542","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}