UK (Commonwealth Union)_ One of the world’s oldest whiskies believed to have been distilled in 1833 will be auctioned off after being discovered hidden in a Scottish castle.
The spirit is believed to have been sampled by a young Queen Victoria who visited the castle and grew to like Atholl Brose, a mixture of whisky and honey.
Blair Castle is the ancestral home of the Dukes of Atholl and its trustee, Bertie Troughton, came upon around 40 bottles of the rare tipple in the cellar late last year.
The whisky was discovered behind a cellar door at the 750-year-old Blair Castle in Perthshire, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Atholl.
The Scotch, thought to have been distilled nearly 200 years ago, was discovered behind a cellar door at 750-year-old Blair Castle in Perthshire. Said to be one of the oldest in the world, it is going on sale at £10K per bottle.
Each of the 24 bottles distilled in 1834, bottled in 1841, and later rebottled in 1932 is going on sale and is expected to fetch around £10,000, according to Whisky Auctioneer, the company handling the sale.
Two dozen bottles will now go on sale individually via Perth-based Whisky Auctioneer, whose head curator, Joe Wilson, called the upcoming auction “a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence” to buy what he said is the “world’s oldest scotch whisky”.
Mr Wilson described it to be “a transcendent discovery”.
The Castle archives included cellar inventories known as “bin books” and one, dated July 23 1834 – one year after the whisky was initially casked – shows cask whisky recorded in the cellar which states: “Bin 65 – Store Whiskey – 72 bottles = 40 Gallons in wood.”
Mr Troughton said that Whisky had always been a huge part of the history of Blair Castle and that they would be building an exhibition around the bottles.
As for how it tastes, a specialist in old and rare whiskies, Angus MacRaild, said it has “a flavour profile that strongly involves medicinal characteristics without any notable or pronounced peat smoke”.
Mr MacRaild is one of the few who have sampled what he called “a profoundly historic whisky”, which he called “a great privilege”.
The expert said that it had been carefully re-bottled and preserved at natural strength, maintaining the freshness and power of this spirit for nearly two centuries and was, frankly, astonishing.
The bottles will go up for auction from 24th November to 4th December.
