An American industrialist, a 1929 brewery and a 1935 beer.

Presidente is the beer of Cervecería Nacional Dominicana, or CND, the brewery in Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic. English and Spanish Wikipedia both say the company was founded in 1929 by the American industrialist Charles H. Wanzer and business partners, and that the Presidente brand followed in 1935; English Wikipedia places the beer’s introduction in Santiago de los Caballeros, the country’s second city. Spanish Wikipedia says the beer was named in honour of the president of the day, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo.

The beer that carries the name today is not the one first sold. English Wikipedia says Presidente began as a dark beer that met with limited success, and that it was turned into a pilsner in the 1960s. That pilsner is the product the brand is known for: Spanish Wikipedia describes a pale golden beer brewed from water, barley malt, corn semolina, sugar and hops, and sold in green bottles and cans.

The brewery grew with the brand. Spanish Wikipedia says CND’s present factory complex was inaugurated in 1951, near the Santo Domingo waterfront, and puts its workforce at about 2,500 people and its capacity at up to 500 million litres of beer a year; English Wikipedia gives the same figures. Spanish Wikipedia adds that the brewery works to the ISO 9001:2000 quality standard and has storage capacity of about three million litres.

From a tobacco group to AmBev.

For most of its life CND has been Dominican-owned. In 1986 it was bought by Grupo León Jimenes, English and Spanish Wikipedia say. That group grew out of tobacco: English Wikipedia says Eduardo Antonio León Jimenes established the La Aurora cigar factory in 1903, that the family company was formed in 1930, that it opened a cigarette plant in 1963 and partnered with Philip Morris International in 1969. It entered brewing in 1979 with Cervecería Bohemia, and the same article says that after buying CND it held about 98 per cent of the Dominican beer market. In the same period the group stepped back from tobacco, selling its cigarette business to Philip Morris in 2006 and its stake in the La Aurora cigar factory in 2011, the article says.

The next change came in 2012. English Wikipedia says that in June of that year AmBev, the Brazilian unit of Anheuser-Busch InBev, agreed to buy a controlling stake in CND: a 41 per cent holding from Grupo León Jimenes and a 10 per cent holding from Heineken, giving AmBev 51 per cent. Spanish Wikipedia dates the sale to 16 April 2012 and describes the whole 51 per cent as sold by Grupo León Jimenes, so the two accounts differ on who sold what. Both agree that AmBev took control and that the Dominican group kept a share. English Wikipedia describes the result as the Caribbean’s largest beverage company. English Wikipedia’s article on Grupo León Jimenes adds that the group sold a further 30 per cent of the brewery to AmBev in 2017 and now describes its beverage holdings as minority stakes. CND’s own website carries an Anheuser-Busch InBev copyright line.

The brand reaches well beyond the island. English Wikipedia lists distribution across North America, Central America and the Caribbean, and in Europe in countries including Spain, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. It also says the version sold in the United States is brewed in St. Louis, Missouri, and that the US label gives the reason as “a fresher taste” — a claim made by the brand, not an independent finding.

The range has widened too. English Wikipedia lists a Presidente Light, a Presidente Black and a beer called The One alongside the original, and notes that CND also brews other labels, such as Bohemia and Brahma, for the Dominican market. Spanish Wikipedia adds a Golden Light. English Wikipedia gives the standard Presidente as a 5.0 per cent pilsner, with the Light at 4.3 per cent and the Black at 6.0 per cent. In 2012, Spanish Wikipedia says, Presidente received a Superior Taste Award from the International Taste and Quality Institute in Brussels.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group all make beer or rum, and all of them come from the Caribbean: Presidente, Brugal, Barceló, Red Stripe, Appleton Estate, Mount Gay and Carib. Caribbean drink brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from family firms that still carry a founder’s surname to names that now belong to much larger drinks groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a rum shop to an airport duty-free shelf.

A drink brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single product than by a bottle, a label and the place it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its brewing or bottling or grown far beyond the island where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its beer or rum is actually made and bottled.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its drinks are made and how its labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Green glass, sport and music.

Much of Presidente’s public identity is built through sponsorship, much of it in Miami. English Wikipedia records that in 2007 it became the official beer of the University of Miami Hurricanes football team and of the Orange Bowl; that in 2009 it became the Miami Heat’s official imported beer; and that in 2012 it became an official sponsor of the Miami Marlins.

At home, the brewery puts its name to the Festival Presidente de Música Latina, a music festival held in Santo Domingo in October, English Wikipedia says, and Spanish Wikipedia describes as a three-day event bringing together Dominican and international performers.

For a design guide, Presidente shows how a national beer can carry a country’s name for a drink abroad while its ownership changes behind the label. Compare Carib, the Trinidad lager, and Red Stripe, from Jamaica. For this guide we use bottle green, cream and a seal red with a condensed sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Presidente’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.