SANTIAGO DE CUBA — The best rum bar in Cuba may be the one in the basement of a sparse museum in the center of this colonial port city, an 11-hour drive from Havana on the island’s southeastern coast.

The bar, El Traguito, occupies just a few hundred square feet that open onto a quiet side street below the Museo del Ron, the rum museum upstairs. It bears little resemblance to the expansive rum palaces of Havana like El Floridita, with its assembly-line drinks, its throngs of tourists and its statue of Ernest Hemingway, who made it world-famous, leaning over the bar.

What El Traguito does have is Eduardo Corona, its cantinero, or head bartender. Bald, compact, animated and wearing sunglasses even in the bar’s dark, cool interior, Mr. Corona is a master craftsman, whose rapid-fire patter counterpoints the slow precision with which he makes his drinks. He is also a fierce advocate for Santiago de Cuba’s underappreciated legacy as the birthplace of not just Cuban rum, but its most popular vehicle, the daiquiri.