Running an alcohol company is more than putting out a superior product; you have to create a brand that people actually care about and connect with. How you choose to share your story is up to you, but if you are one of the largest liquor brands in the world, you go big or go home.

The masters of rum at Bacardi have released a graphic novel to showcase their company’s interesting family history. Titled, The Spirit of Bacardi, this 30-page illustrated book (grown-ups need pictures, too) recently launched as a free download on the Bacardi website and across various blogs on Vice.com.

The graphic novel focuses on the story of Emilio Bacardi, the son of the company’s founder, Don Facundo. Emilio was a big deal in the late 19th century in Cuba and their struggle for independence; he was arrested, exiled and imprisoned twice. In the end, he gave the middle finger to all of that and became the first freely elected mayor of Santiago de Cuba. The novel also touches on other challenges the Bacardi family faced and how they overcame them. Bacardi’s current marketing campaign is “BACARDI, Untameable Since 1862,” and Emilio is the perfect badass representative of that.

The story actually seems pretty cool and it’s a good way to make the brand seem even more legitimate because of its heritage, but our favorite part is who the company got to create the novel: writer Warren Ellis and artist Mike Allred. Ellis and Allred are no joke. They’ve been a part of the world of comics for a while now. They’ve been involved in graphic novels and comics that involve Iron Man, Superman, Wolverine, Green Lantern, Thor, Silver Surfer, and Batman.

One other interesting feature of this graphic novel? The ink they used had a little bit of Bacardi rum added into it. We’d love to get our hands on the original artwork to see if we can smell or taste the rum. Weird? Whatever.

Anyone read Bacardi’s graphic novel already? What’d you think?

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