The two bottles are part of an original batch of approx. 6,000 bottles of fine, old rum, whisky and cognac that have a rather tumultuous backstory as spoils of war for both the British, German and American armies during World War II. Even “The Desert Fox", the famous General Erwin Rommel, and his German troops also had their hands on the liquor at one point.

Before that, the liquor – which at the time was in barrels – had crossed the Atlantic several times during the late 1920s and early 1930s. The exact cause of this crisscrossing of the high seas is not known, but the barrels were supposedly sent illegally to the United States during the Prohibition era. Instead, the barrels ended up in a North African port under the command of the British Army during World War II. Due to General Rommel's success on the battle field in this region, the barrels were taken as loot and later sent to Italy as the fortunes of war turned against the Germans. Here, the barrels were eventually confiscated by the American invasion army near the end of the war, and in 1946 the Americans allowed an Italian wine company to bottle the contents of the barrels. It was in this form, that they were later transported to Denmark.