2 Best Sights in Western Cuba, Cuba

On a narrow side street south of the city center, this small distillery occupies a former rum factory. Just about every process is done by hand, from pouring the tiny guayabita berries into huge, wooden fermenting barrels, to bottle washing, to tapping corks into the bottles, to affixing the old-fashioned labels. Visitors can taste the finished product in the shop. The dry version, which ferments for three months, is a fiery blast of brandy; the sweet version is more like a plum eau de vie. A bottle costs around CUC$6. It's noisy, messy and often crowded with tour groups, but it's a glimpse of how a truly authentic Cuban product is still being produced.

It's not easy to find, so hire a pedal cab.

This traditional cigar factory, in a stately, colonnaded building that was the city jail until 1961, offers a more intimate visit than some of the major Havana cigar factories. You can watch a Montecristo in the making, as a guide explains the process. In a long, high-ceilinged hall, mostly young men—sporting trendy, shaved hair-dos—sit at old-fashioned, wooden tables, carefully destemming aged tobacco leaves, which look like thin strips of leather, then slowly rolling layers of different tobacco. The rolls are placed in plastic molds, pressed, then tested with an air compressor for the right consistency. You might hear the lector (reader) entertain the cigar rollers by reading newspaper articles from Granma or novels, but it's more likely you'll hear popular music from a radio. You purchase your ticket in the air-conditioned Casa del Habano across the street, where you can also buy cigars and souvenir humedors.

No cameras are allowed in the cigar factory.