Oldest known bottle of whiskey in existence is heading to auction

Raise your glass for this whiskey that was produced between 1763 and 1802. And yes, even after 250 years, there is still some remaining whiskey inside the bottle.

The Old Ingledew Whiskey will hit the auction block in June and is expected to fetch up to $40,000 (almost P2 million) according to Skinner Auctioneers, which will facilitate the auction.

It was initially estimated that the historic bourbon whiskey was made in 1850, nestled in a brown glass bottle that bears the embossed bottlers’ name: Evans & Ragland, Lagrange GA.

But through carbon dating, scientists from both University of Georgia and University of Glasgow found out that there is an 81.1 percent probability that the whiskey was actually produced between 1763 and 1803, making it the oldest known whiskey in existence.

According to Skinner, the standard practice was to store spirits in large glass demijohn containers after being aged in oak barrels.

At the back label of the bottle was a typed note that said, “This Bourbon was probably made prior to 1865 and was in the cellars of Mr. John Pierpont Morgan from whose estate it was acquired upon his death. As far as is known, there were no Bourbon distilleries in Georgia after the Civil War.”

Wall Street financier J.P. Morgan reportedly purchased the whiskey in one of his frequent visits to Georgia. It was also believed that his son, Jack Morgan, later gifted the bottle to former US Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, and former US Supreme Court Justice James Byrnes in the ‘40s.

Skinner said Byrnes gifted the bottle to close friend and neighbor Francis Drake, whose descendants, being scotch drinkers, safeguarded the bottle for three generations.

The bottle will be up at the Rare Spirits auction from June 22 to 30.

The Old Ingledew Whiskey is over 75 years older than the current Guinness World Record holder as the oldest whiskey in the world—the Baker’s Pure Rye Whiskey, distilled in 1847 and was verified in November 2018.

The most expensive whiskey sold at an auction is the Macallan Fine and Rare 1926 60-year-old (verified in October 2019), which fetched for a whopping £1,452,000 or about P98 million.

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