A BOTTLE of whiskey purported to be the oldest in existence has smashed all expectations at auction to sell for a staggering six-figure sum.
The ultra-rare bottle of Old Ingledew Whiskey had been expected to fetch somewhere in the region of $20,000 to $40,000 at a sale overseen by Skinner Auctioneers.
But the flurry of bidding witnessed during the auction saw the final price for the spirit skyrocket to an astonishing $137,500, according to CNN.
Originally, the bottle of whiskey was thought to date back to 1850.
However, recent laboratory tests by the University of Georgia and University of Glasgow revealed is, in fact, much older.
Using a sample of liquid taken from the bottle scientists were able to determine, via carbon testing, that the whiskey was most likely bottled at some point between 1763 and 1803.
That dates it all the way back to the times of the Revolutionary War.
An already fascinating bottle of the iconic spirit, this one has even more of a back story given that it once belonged to John Pierpoint Morgan, a Wall Street financier and the founder of JPMorgan Chase & Co.
According to Barron’s, he obtained it on a business trip to Georgia and it was later gifted to future US Supreme Court justice and South Carolina governor James Byrnes in the early 1940s.
Two other bottles were given to US Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt (a cousin) and Harry S. Truman. This is the only one still intact.
Despite the staggering fee paid out and the age, the whiskey is still some way off being the world’s most expensive though.
That honour belongs to a similarly bottle of Macallan Fine and Rare 60-Year-Old 1926 that sold for $1.9 million in 2019.
