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 ...
There’s hope for the stuff in the back of my fridge yet.
Thank for the info bro!
When I was in the Army in Germany in the during my 1st tour, dates below, the Army Class VI stores had a special sale of “Rommel’s Rum and Brandy.” This was original bottles of rum and brandy either captured by the US Army in North Africa or in Italy from supply stocks to be sent to Rommel when he was leading the Afrika Korps. I bought a bottle of each. I drank the rum and brandy years ago, but saved the bottle and the small tags telling the story behind them.
I wonder if it is still good after all these years under the sea.
I read years ago in National Geographic that, in the 1950s, they found unopened bottles in the ruins of Port Royal, Jamaica, sunk during the 1692 earthquake, but the liquor was not good to drink at all.
Too cool. Have priced the bottles?
I quit already out of self-preservation.
I have not gotten a price for the empty green one liter bottles, and it never occurred to me to do so. I don’t recall how much they sold for back in 1977 when they were released into the USAREUR Class VI system.
Love it.
The hard part is transferring the old stuff into a new frig.
I have a few bottles of pre-war scotch, inherited from my dad. A Red Hackle and a Pinch.
I know they are not going to get any better and I should drink them but just can’t talk myself into opening them.
Maybe a special occasion.. When Trump gets re-elected..
Yeah, throwing away such bottles was a perfectly understandable thing to do at the time, but a big mistake in retrospect. You were smart. Recently I watched/listened to an interview on YT, one of the WWII airborne guys who were shown Hitler’s personal stash of booze, which they mostly swilled down while just doing their jobs. :^) The interviewee noted that he had two bottles marked, in ink, for Hitler only, and drank one back at the time, and drank the second one years later at a vet’s gathering I think, but didn’t save either bottle. Wowzo. :^) Can’t figure out which vid at the moment.
https://www.youtube.com/c/avcvideos/videos
I hate myself for laughing at that.
So, they are fake.
Not original cognac, just cleaned bottles with new cognac......................
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