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Hotel Plaza (Havana) advertising drink stirrer / swizzle stick
Object/Artifact
Single red translucent-plastic drink stirrer. A flat circular paddle at the top is printed in black with the hotel's crowned heraldic cipher above HOTEL PLAZA / HAVANA; the shaft tapers to a small ball foot. The logo is surface-printed (pad/screen), not embossed.
2025.25.7
María Teresa Cornide Hernández collection
2025.25
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
Maker: Hotel Plaza, Havana (advertising barware); stirrer manufacturer not marked. Date: Plausibly pre-1959 (Cuban pre-revolutionary tourist era), but also within 1959–1990. The English "HAVANA," the heraldic crowned-cipher branding, and the mid-century American paddle-and-ball form favor the 1940s–50s; a continued post-1959 state-tourism origin is equally possible. (Tentative; boundary/transitional.)
Printed on paddle: coroneted monogram/cipher device; HOTEL PLAZA; HAVANA.
Plastic
Materials: Molded plastic (polystyrene), translucent red; printed ink logo. Technique: Injection-molded stirrer; surface-printed (pad/screen) logo.
Good
Havana
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
use
The Hotel Plaza occupies the former mansion of the Marqués de Pinar del Río in Old Havana (Neptuno/Zulueta, facing Parque Central), inaugurated as a hotel in 1909. The coroneted monogram on the paddle derives from the marquis's heraldry, adopted as the hotel's emblem. A pre-revolution landmark for American visitors, it continued as a state-run hotel (later Gran Caribe) after 1959. English-language "HAVANA" hotel barware of this style is strongly associated with the pre-revolutionary US-tourist economy; like the Havana Club pineapple swizzles, it straddles the 1959 boundary.