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Le rhum ne doit pas nécessairement être puissant et intense. Il peut aussi être doux, crémeux et irrésistiblement délicieux, comme un dessert que l’on préfère garder pour soi.
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24 assemblages uniques de Old St. Croix
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The Man Behind Old St. Croix
With the launch of Old St. Croix XO Reserve Tribute, we honor the founder who brought together apothecary craft, West Indian raw materials, natural science, and Danish maritime history.
Albert Heinrich Riise
A tribute to the man behind
Old St. Croix XO Reserve Tribute has been launched as a tribute to Albert Heinrich Riise – the Danish pharmacist, naturalist, and pioneer who laid the foundation for what is today Old St. Croix.
From Ærø to the West Indies
For generations, the Riise name has been associated with West Indian spirits, Danish seafaring, and the story of a young man from Ærø who set out into the world and created his life’s work in the Caribbean. Albert Heinrich Riise was born in Ærøskøbing in 1810. As a young man, he trained as an apothecary and developed an early interest in the healing arts, botany, and zoology. Even before he left for the West Indies, he was known as a skilled and ambitious professional. But it was on St. Thomas that his life truly took shape.
St. Thomas Apothecary Hall
In 1838, Albert Heinrich Riise was granted the apothecary privilege in Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies. As a royally appointed pharmacist, he held the exclusive right to produce alcohol in the pharmacy – a privilege that would prove highly significant. After the first years of establishment, St. Thomas Apothecary Hall was opened in Dronningensgade in Charlotte Amalie. Here, science and craftsmanship met. Riise developed elixirs, bitters, medicinal preparations, and aromatic spirits based on local herbs, sugarcane, and West Indian raw materials.
St. Croix - The Island, the Raw Materials, and the Name
To understand Old St. Croix, one must also understand the island of St. Croix. In the 18th and 19th centuries, St. Croix was known as the great agricultural island of the West Indies – lush, sunny, and ideal for growing sugarcane. The island earned the nickname The Garden of the West Indies, and with its many sugar works and distilleries, St. Croix became a center for sugar, molasses, and rum production.
It was this quality that Riise drew upon from his base on St. Thomas. He purchased sugarcane spirit and molasses from St. Croix and used them as the foundation for his own products. In modern terms, he can be seen as an early Master Blender: a craftsman who selected the finest raw materials and worked with strength, balance, and aroma until each product achieved the desired character.
The name Old St. Croix was therefore never just a name on a label. It was a marker of origin, craftsmanship, and West Indian quality. Even in Riise’s time, St. Croix evoked associations with sugarcane, molasses, and aromatic spirits, and when Riise – and later his descendants – brought the products to international markets, Old St. Croix became the name that carried the Caribbean origin with it.
Riise the Naturalist
But Albert Heinrich Riise was far more than a skilled pharmacist and businessman. He was also a passionate naturalist. From St. Thomas, he devoted himself to the study of the islands’ flora and fauna. He collected plants, animals, and minerals, sent material to natural history collections in Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Oslo, among other places, and contributed to scientific studies of West Indian nature.
His botanical and zoological work had lasting significance. Several of his collections were used in scientific papers, and Riise’s name became connected to natural history through species named after him. Among them is the tropical fish Corynopoma riisei, which bears his name. It reveals something essential about him: he was not only concerned with creating products. He wanted to understand the world he lived in.
That curiosity followed him back to Denmark. When he settled on Frederiksberg in the later years of his life, he purchased Villa St. Thomas – named after the island where he had created his life’s work. The garden surrounding the villa was filled with rare plants, a greenhouse, a pond, and Latin plant labels. Here, his interest in botany continued, and the garden became a small West Indian echo in the heart of Copenhagen.
Honors and Influence
Riise also achieved considerable recognition in his own time. On St. Thomas, he held several honorary positions and was, among other roles, director of the National Bank on the island. He was made Knight of the Order of Dannebrog in 1860, Councillor of Justice in 1867, and received the Swedish Order of Vasa in 1873. After donating funds for the construction of four school buildings on St. Thomas, he was appointed Councillor of State. His work therefore reached far beyond the walls of the pharmacy. He was a man who left his mark on business, science, and local society alike.
The Family Carried the Legacy Forward
The family also played a central role in the story. In 1842, Albert Heinrich Riise married Henriette Marie Worm in Frederiksted on St. Croix, and together they had 13 children. In particular, his sons Karl and Valdemar carried the legacy forward. In 1878, they jointly took over St. Thomas Apothecary Hall, before the company later passed to Valdemar alone. In this way, Riise’s life’s work was not only preserved, but further developed by the next generation.
In 1888, Karl and Valdemar Riise received a medal on behalf of the company at the Nordic Exhibition of Industry, Agriculture, and Art in Copenhagen – six years after their father’s death. The exhibition presented, among other things, products from the Danish West Indies, and the contribution from the House of Riise included both pharmaceutical products and the spirits that had made the name known.
It was also with the sons at the helm that Old St. Croix Rum received a gold medal at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893. This helped place Danish West Indian rum on the world map – and it is precisely this historical line that Old St. Croix continues to build upon today.
Valdemar Riise and the Royal Connections
Like his father, Valdemar Riise became a prominent figure in West Indian society. He was trained as a pharmacist, had studied at agricultural institutions in Leipzig, Dresden, and Paris, and became, among other things, a member of the Colonial Advisory Board, churchwarden, and chairman of the advisory board of the Danish West Indian National Bank. He also became Norwegian consul and formed a close friendship with the young Prince Carl – later King Haakon VII of Norway – who visited the West Indies as a sailor aboard the Frigate Jylland in 1886 and later as an officer aboard the Frigate Fyen in 1895-96. Today, Old St. Croix honors this connection through the blend Haakon Royal Reserve.
The Frigate Jylland and the Maritime Heritage
The Frigate Jylland also belongs in this story. The proud frigate of the Danish Navy visited the West Indian islands five times between 1871 and 1887 and is today preserved as a museum ship. In the Old St. Croix universe, the Frigate Jylland is not merely a historical name, but a symbol of the maritime connection that tied Denmark and the West Indies together. When naval ships arrived at the islands, seafaring, trade, craftsmanship, and West Indian culture met in the same harbor – the very world of which Riise and his family were a part. Today, part of the sales of Fregatten Jylland goes toward the preservation of the historic warship, which now serves as a museum ship.
A Historic Name with a Course Toward the Future
The legacy of Albert Heinrich Riise is carried forward today through the Old St. Croix brand, now sold in more than 30 countries. It is a continuation of the ambition Riise himself set in motion when Old St. Croix was used to bring West Indian quality to international markets.
Old St. Croix Spirits also supports the A.H. Riise Family Foundation through educational grants for young members of the Riise family and contributions to the digitalization of the family archives. This helps preserve and make accessible the sources, letters, and documents that continue to add nuance to the story of Riise, his family, and his life’s work.
From the original recipes to the preserved family archives, the legacy points forward: toward an Old St. Croix that continues to build on history with the same ambition for quality, perspective, and international reach.
