I recently aquired a bottle of "Dewars Ancestor" scotch whisky. The label says it's 12 yr old Scotch, and the tax stamp has a date of
01/68. If it was 12 yrs old whne it was bottled, that makes it somewhere around 50 yrs old.
Is it any good? It sat in a kitchen cupboard for the last 20 yrs. Before that, no one knows how it was stored.
What do I do with it? I am not a scotch drinker and I don't really know anyone who is. I can't sell it on E-Bay, or anywhere else as near as I can tell because I am not a licensed dealer.
The message from snipped-for-privacy@paulroberts.com contains these words:
Assuming that you are a citizen, or at least a denizened resident, of one of the US states, does your state law really prohibit one man selling a single bottle of "liquor" as an unrepeated one off to another citizen? "Oh, are you goingh down town? Please get me a bottle of some cheap vodka. I'll give you the cash when I see you." Can they prohibit even that?
If so, then given that the whisky inside the bottle is pretty undistinguished, why not sell the attractive antique bottle, with original label and tax stamp in mint condition, and give the fluid contents away? (Look at any "escort's" advertisement!! That is just about what she says she offers, which I've always assumed was intended to avoid legal difficulties!)
You might try the current owners of the Dewars brand. They might like to have such an artifact to decorate their head office. Doubtless someone better informed than I will know what multi national conglomerate bought the name when the regulators required Guinness to sell it as part of the price of uniting with Grand Met to become Diageo. I'd much doubt that the Dewars' archive was sold so the new owners could be a bit in need of "authentic" heritage!
In age, yes. But once it's in the glass, it can only stay the same at best, or degrade if stored poorly (heat, light).
I don't know that particular Scotch, sorry.
If you tell people what country you're in, that will help a lot when it comes to questions like this. Someone just mentioned a good broker just west of London, if you're in that part of the world. A specialty shop would, I think, be your best bet in finding out the value of something like this.
Never heard of such a law myself, no, is that something you'd expect to be the case?
Naah, easier to find someone who knows what the stuff really is worth. If it's just mixin' whisky, might as well drink it and thank Grandpa or whomever.
That's not a bad idea. I've sold old postcards which wouldn't go for 50 cents each on eBay, to the companies whose buildings they show, at 5 bucks a card. It's all about finding the right buyer, and when the product isn't particularly stellar, that limits your options.
Sorry to disappoint you, but what you actually have is a bottle of
12-year-old mediocre blended scotch whisky that's been sitting on the shelf for quite a remarkable period, most probably just degrading there. Whisky does not age in the bottle, and it certainly does not improve once bottled. You might find a collector out there who's after this particular bottle, a very rare one admittedly, but such a collector just might turn out to be incomparably harder to find than a bottle like yours. In other words, serious collectors are usually after rare bottlings of single malt whisky, not rare blends.
You've got a few options here. You can open and drink it, use it as a cooking whisky (that's what I would do), or give it as a gift to someone you know who drinks blended whiskies. They might appreciate it.
And just to clarify its value - it most probably is worth just as much as a bottle of Dewars 12yo blended whisky you can find on the shelves of any given liquor store today.
One last thing - I am not an ecxpert in blended or collectible whiskes. It just might turn out I am wrong, and this particular bottling is of some special kind, it is limited, it was bottled to commemorate something important, whatever. Or you might find this rare collector interested in this particular one. You never know.
Well, whisky exchange was mentionned and they have a bottle of DEWAR'S ANCESTOR. It looks like it's selling for 110 UKP... that would be close to 200 USD....
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you have a picture to check if your bottle matches the one they advertise.
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