World's Oldest Bottle of Whisky - Bonham's London
Singlemalt TV traveled to London with Charlie MacLean for a look at what is believed to be the oldest bottle of whisky in the world. Charlie is a consultant to Bonham's and was called in for a tasting evening and an evaluation of the bottle before it went to auction.
#wineculture, #brandychannel
One of the jobs that I do in relation to whisky is to advise Bonhams international auctioneers
about whiskies that come up for auction. Now I'm standing in their offices in Bond Street,
New Bond Street in London, and a very very interesting bottle appeared on the 29th of
November this year. It's so important that it's illustrated on the cover of the catalogue for the
sale. It's called Glen Arn, Glen Avon, but pronounced Glen Arn. The River Arn joins the
River Spey at Ballandaloch where Craggan Moor distillery is located. And there was a distillery
known to have been there, they don't know exactly where, in 1851. And in 1852 it was licensed to a
after that vanishes from the record. Now with a little bit of research, there was just up the
road at Glenlivet distillery John Gordon Smith, the son of George Smith who founded Glenlivet.
John G. Smith, maybe they're the same person. Glen Arn doesn't appear in any of the records
relating to Glenlivet distillery, so maybe they're not the same person. And indeed to further confuse
the issue, the man who founded Craggan Moor distillery was also called John Smith, although
so far as I've been able to find out he had no middle name. So was this Glen Arn? All it says
on the label is Glen Arn special liqueur whiskey bottled by the distillers. Now the latter is
important because to be truthful it would have to, if it was made at Glen Arn, it would have to
have been bottled by the owners of Glen Arn. If the owner was John G. Smith, John Gordon Smith of
Glenlivet, they consolidated, the Smiths of Glenlivet consolidated that they had, they certainly
had a distillery at Delnabow and they had another distillery at Upper Drimmond and they consolidated
in 1858 at Minmoor, the present site of the Glenlivet distillery. So this whiskey was made
in the 1850s if this was the case. Judging by the bottle and the label, the style of the label
and research that Bonhams have done into bottle and label, it would seem to have been bottled
in the 1880s but if it was bottled by the distillers the whiskey may have been made
in the 1850s which makes it potentially one of the oldest bottles of whiskey that's ever come to auction.
I think that's enough waving around now.