Check your laundry cupboard
The 1920 bottle of Glenfarclas-Glenlivet Pure Malt Whisky on the desk is actually the youngest thing in the picture. Both the desk and the typewriter predate the whisky.
The oldest-known bottle of Clenfarclas Scotch whisky in existence was found unopened and safely tucked away wrapped in a towel at the back of a laundry cupboard.
The 100 year-old Scotch was rediscovered by the daughter of the former Manager of the Glenfarclas Distillery in Scotland.
It had slipped her mind that her father, Stephen Dowell, was originally given the bottle of Glenfarclas-Glenlivet Pure Malt Whisky back in 1920 on the closing of the North Lanarkshire distillery. He’d kept it until 1947 before passing it onto his daughter.
She, in turn, passed it onto her niece’s husband Hugh Taylor.
Hugh then brought the bottle of to John Grant, the present Chairman and Chief Executive of the Glenfarclas Distillery and the grandson of the distillery’s founder, who inspected it.
A number of features on the bottle meant he’d absolutely no doubt about its authenticity. In an age when a number of bottles purportedly from that time are turning out to be counterfeit, this one was definitely the real deal.
He confirmed the belief that it was the oldest unopened bottle of Glenfarclas in existence.
It has been returned to the distillery’s spiritual home and now forms part of the distillery’s archive.
Since then, a rare cask of whisky has just sold for a record £1 million at auction after being bought 34 years ago for just £5,000.
The Macallan 1988 cask had been forgotten about until the distillery reminded its original owner that it remained maturing in a warehouse.
The online sale via specialist auction site Whisky Hammer drew bids from around the world and the winning bid was made by an individual private buyer from the United States.
It smashed the existing auction record for a cask, set at £444,000 in 2019.
Held in bond at The Macallan distillery, the 374-litre refill butt was filled on the 5th of May 1988.
The hammer price was £915,500, with the bidder paying £1,007,050 including buyer’s premium.
