Does Carbon Dating Resolve the Question of the World's Oldest Whisky

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Jan 1st 2008 at 11:02AM

The Islay Weblog has another update on the question of the age of the "1851 Mutter Bowmore," the whisky bottle that fetched $59,200 in September. The actual age of the bottle has been questioned with a variety of people pointing out that the bottle and the label seem to indicate that the bottle might be younger than the date given. Iain Russell, the archivist at the Scottish Brewing Archive based at Glasgow University, has pointed out anomalies that would date the bottle in the 1890s.

Now whisky consultant Martin Green responds that the carbon dating results show that the spirit was produced between 1808 and 1854, so that the auction description of the bottle as being circa 1850 was accurate. Iain Russell told the local paper that the radio carbon date must indeed be the oldest known to be in existence, but the bottle in which the whisky is held, and the label on that bottle, date from much later than 1851. This doesn't jibe with the story that the Mutter family has told saying that this bottle was given to their ancestor William Mutter in 1851. The mystery continues.

UDPATE: Iain Russell weighs in below in the comments section clarifying his words to the Ileach paper. This story just gets more interesting!

Tags: bowmore, islay, mutters, scotch, whisky

Filed under: Spirits

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Iain Russell Jan 7th 2008 5:02PM

Dear Luxist, my name is Iain Russell. Can I ask you to clarify an error that appeared originally in the Ileach newspaper, which has now been picked up by a number of news agencies and is now printed here?

I did tell the Ileach that IF THE WHISKY IN THE MUTTER BOWMORE BOTTLE WAS FROM 1808-1854 IT MIGHT BE "the oldest known to be in existence". But they left out the first (important!) part of the sentence. Of course there is absolutely no evidence that it is from that period - the claim from Martin Green is based on a mis-reading of the report from the carbon dating lab (I can provide you with the technical details).

So I don't know how old that whisky is, and I certainly have no reason to believe it is "the oldest known to be in existence". But I still believe that the bottle is from a much older period!

I hope you can find a way to print this info. As you'll know, it's infuriating when a misquote or "out of context" quote gets let loose on the worldwide web.

And a belated Happy New Year to you all!