Do You Have Prince Albert In A Can? No? Well, You Can Have His Whisky
The SS Wallachia sunk in 1895 after colliding with a Norwegian steamship in a dense fog in the Firth of Clyde. This somewhat unremarkable occurrence is made somewhat intriguing when it was discovered that a portion of the ship’s cargo of beer, gin and whisky was still intact.
Divers exploring the shipwreck in 1980 were able to bring back several bottles of beer and whisky including some of those from the distillery of Robert Brown in Glasgow, who had made the type of whisky specifically preferred by the Prince of Wales, and among the bottles, several were found to have inscriptions which read: ‘Specially Selected Very Old Scotch Whisky Same As Supplied To H.R.H The Prince Of Wales’.
Seven of those whisky bottles and one McEwan’s stout beer bottle – all containing now undrinkable liquid – were extracted from the shipwreck in 1988 along with a stone flagon and will be put up for auction.
The bottles – priced at $520 – will be auctioned off in Sheffield in the UK on September 30, 2016.