Posted on 06/26/2022 1:00:09 PM PDT by DFG
A hoard of contraband alcohol recovered from a shipwreck 100 years after it sank on its way to tsarist Russia is going on sale for nearly £8,000 a bottle.
Hundreds of bottles were salvaged by a specialist Swedish team in the Sea of Aland, near the Baltic Sea, in 2019.
The crew found 600 bottles of De Haartman & Co cognac and 300 bottles of Benedictine liqueur within the remains of the Kyros, which was sunk by a German submarine in May 1917.
It is believed the shipment left Bordeaux in December 1916, but was delayed until the spring due to ice in the Gulf of Bothnia.
By the time the ship was on its way to Russia again, Tsar Nicholas II had been forced to abdicate as the Russia Revolution took over the country.
Since the haul was found again, Cognac house Birkedal Hartmann has carefully cleaned 300 of the bottles, removed the corks and filled them with Grande Champagne Cognac from 1910-15, reports Decanter.
Company archives were used to reproduce the original corks, capsules and labels. Each one-litre bottle is presented in a gift box, which also contains the original cork a and a photograph of the SS Kyros.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
2.4 million max.. and that’s assuming that flooding the market with 100’s of those doesn’t drive down prices, and plus... what did the operation cost to retrieve them?
300 bottles of Cognac on the wall, 300 bottles of Cognac, you take one down you pass it around, 299 bottles of Cognac on the wall.
So they saved the bottle? And I pay a lot for that? Maybe the seal was bad and that's all that's left unless you want something that tastes of whale pee and crab.
Losing all of the bottles of Cognac must have been a real mar to the bar of the Tsar...
That Cognac belongs to Putin!
Give it to him before he goes nuclear!
So it’s literally the bottles.
Not the cognac that was in them.
“So they saved the bottle? And I pay a lot for that? Maybe the seal was bad and that’s all that’s left unless you want something that tastes of whale pee and crab. “
pretty much ... but still, maybe a little bit more worthwhile than an NFT for a Bored Ape Yacht Club jpeg ...
I wondered what Benedictine Liquor is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bénédictine
https://www.benedictinedom.com
A bottle costs about $40. I’ll have to buy a bottle.
New label, new cork, “new” 100 year old cognac. You get an old glass bottle. What a deal.
Not the cognac that was in them.
The article mentioned that four bottles of the cognac were recovered in drinkable condition and were auctioned off for $45K each. I wonder where they sourced the period-correct replacement cognac from, to fill the remaining (refurbished) bottles? It seems like very old examples of rare distilled spirits (like pre-ban absinthe, for example) tend to come for Spain.
Cognac good - Armagnac better
Tangentially related...
Years and years ago, I bought a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle. Was 15 years old at the time. It was to celebrate the sale of a business. My biz partner never came back to my state for the closing, so it remained unopened.
Checked on the value at the end of last year.
Today worth over $10k.
Can’t bring myself to open it. And as an investment, can’t bring myself to sell it, since they can’t make more of that vintage. It keeps becoming more rare.
Well, there is also this ...
... filled them with Grande Champagne Cognac from 1910-15, ...
I'm surprised they had some champagne that old still sitting around.
“The article mentioned that four bottles of the cognac were recovered in drinkable condition and were auctioned off for $45K each.”
Thanks.
“I wonder where they sourced the period-correct replacement cognac from, to fill the remaining (refurbished) bottles? It seems like very old examples of rare distilled spirits (like pre-ban absinthe, for example) tend to come for Spain.”
Good question. I’m guessing it’s not 100 years old.
Fools and there money are easily parted.
See #4
or violate FR tradition and read the article…
Don’t uncorked the Pappy. Buy a bottle of W. L. Weller. A great wheated bourbon with the same grain bill as Pappy and by the same distiller.
“Fools and there money are easily parted.”
Yeah.
Could be worse, though.
Yeah, this seems a bit shady. Fill an old bottle with new crap and sell it for the money the old stuff would have been worth…
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