A.H Riise Royal Danish Navy Rum is another take on Navy Rum.  This time though the focus is on the Royal Danish Navy.  I would be lying if I said I was particularly acquainted with the exploits of the Danish Navy.

A.H Riise was no doubt a high ranking figure in the Danish Navy or some almightly war hero.  No he as was actually a pharmacist.  His links to rum seem to be that he sold and imported rum from the West Indies to Denmark.

It is noted on the A.H Riise website that “This exclusive rum brand has been created as a celebration to one of the most significant and entrepreneurial Danes; Pharmacist and councilor A.H Riise.  He lived and worked in the Danish West Indies in the period 1838 to 1878”

The company behind this rum are A.H Riise Rum LLC. based in Delaware USA!?Confusingly the site then goes onto give contact details with a danish email address.  It also notes that there is a “Dansk Vestindisk Rom Kompagni” which is based in Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas and Copenhagen, Denmark.

It’s all get very complicated already!

The A.H Riise rums are actually quite difficult to find in the UK.  I do not believe they have a regular importer.  They are common place unsurprisingly in Denmark and parts of mainland Europe.  This rum is actually pretty near the bottom of their range in terms of price they have numerous XO and prestige bottlings higher up the scale.

A bottle of this costs around £50-55 or 55-65 euros (the exchange rate is so close nowadays). The Royal Danish Navy Rum is available in two strengths one over proof 55% ABV and this effort which is bottled at a more sedate 40% ABV.

Looking at the labels attached to the bottle highlighting all the gold medals it has won, I notice it is distributed by Haromex.  For me Haromex have a quite baffling array of rums which don’t really seem to pull in any general direction.

So what blend of rums make up a Royal Danish Navy Rum? Once again the rather extensive A.H Riise website provides a few, if not all the answers.

The rum has been re-created to the exact blend as formulated by A.H Riise.  It is a combination of several different rums aged upto 20 years.  The rums are in the “Vedderburn (sic) and Plummer” style.

A molasses based rum produced by slow fermentation, which is then kettle distilled in the traditional “Pot Still” to 85% alcohol.

According to the website this results in an extremely dark, almost black colour with complex shades of coffee, anise, licorice, burnt caramel, molasses, spices and cedar. Combined with an exotic and elegant taste of bitter orange and bergamot fruits.

Now for many websites that would probably be the basis of their “review”.  No doubt all those notes would be noted as they savour their latest free sample.

Unfortunately, I know what a Wedderburn and Plummer style rum is.  I also know that distillation doesn’t make a rum turn black!

I’d heard a few rumours about A.H Riise rum prior to getting a hold of a bottle.  I conducted a Hydrometer test which reveals 92 g/L of added sugar.  This places it very close to the EU’s level for liqueur.  It also puts it in the top most “sugared” rums I have tested to date.

This rum is popular in Denmark though not so much with the “enthusiast” end of the market who are quite critical and almost ashamed of the brand!  I always try and keep an open mind and I always like to try things for myself.  However the hydrometer test is worrying.  As was the cloying nature of the liquid and the very strange smell!

Anyway lets waste no more time on the A.H Riise story and move onto tasting this rum.

A.H Riise Royal Danish Navy Rum is as dark as you might expect of a Navy Rum.  It is almost black with orange and red flashed throughout the rum.  Its a very dark brown colour.

When popping the synthetic cork on this bottle I notice a really sticky residue around the bottle and the cork.  When poured this rum is extremely viscous.  It reminds me more of a Demerara liqueur such as Lord Nelson’s more than a Navy style rum.

The nose is just plain weird.  It’s oddly synthetic smelling.  It smells a little like very cheap chocolate raisins mixed in with Pear Drops.  There is a kind of toffee like note but again its like very cheap toffee.  The kind you get in horrible white paper which melt in your pocket after just a couple of minutes.  It’s cloying to fudge or Scottish tablet like levels.  There is also a kind of varnish like note mingling in with candied oranges but even that has managed what smells like another coating of sugar.  It is ridiculously perfumed and so un-rum like it is unreal.

To be frank the nose borders on being completely repulsive. In many ways A.H Riise have performed a miracle with this particular rum.  They have completely removed all traces of the funky Jamaican Wedderburn and Plummer distillates and replaced them with the contents of a Drag Queens handbag.  I best move onto the tasting quickly.  I do hope it can improve…………..

Sipped the rum is extremely smooth and totally devoid of any alcohol burn whatsoever. Maybe a very faint tap at the end of the very short unrewarding finish.

Taste wise it is all cloying cheap chocolate and sugar coated tangerines with a tiny hit of marmalade.  But even the marmalade note is sweet!  It’s the kind of thing you would have drank as shots like Baileys or Doorley’s (a toffee liqueuer not the Foursquare offering), when you were a kid because you couldn’t stand the taste of alcohol.

In short you get a strong cloying overpowering sweet mess to begin with which quickly disappears into an almost non existent mid palate and a very tiny almost buzz of alcohol for a finish.

All the while you are “sipping” this you are also having to put up with the repulsive reek of this “rum”.

A.H Riise Royal Danish Navy Rum also has the temerity to have a tagline of “World Class Rum”. This is in actual fact rum for people who don’t actually like or understand rum.  It’s rum for people who can’t actually cope with all that “nasty” alcohol burn but still want to spend a few quid on a bottle to try and look sophisticated or even credible.  They want to like rum but unfortunately they just don’t get it.

You’re doing yourself a dis-service.  World Class? If Pussers British Royal Navy Rum is world class Navy rum then this is the England football team.

Overrated? Vastly in certain circles. The worst rum I have ever had?

Probably.