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

Jan 7th 2008 4:29PM 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!