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Old 06-19-2016, 06:26 PM   #64
spectrrr
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First Name: Frank
Location: Ohio
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Default Re: The Whiskey God has smiled....

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheTraveler View Post
Almost 3.5 years later ..... what became of this whisky?
Quote:
Originally Posted by dijit View Post
Interesting answer I received from an old family friend that retired from Jack Daniels. Said they used to label crates that way as well. The 64 for JD would be the year distilled. 86 the year bottled and the 232 the cask # or batch number if its a blended instead of single barrel. He did say JD stopped using wood crates prior to 86 and he thought most everyone in the industry did the same prior to then as well. So he finds it curios how I described this to him. He retired around 1990 and is almost as old as dirt so his memory may be off a little. I agree though what happened to this great find?
Quote:
Originally Posted by hotreds View Post
It must still be sitting somewhere in the good ole USA, waiting for him to return with his wife once she graduates from dental school. (IF he can even get out of Venezuela by then!)
Almost 4 years later... TIME FOR AN UPDATE!

Well, it never made it off the backburner before I moved, so it's waiting back home with the rest of my things (planning on moving back to the USA in 3-4 months)

If I can find a buyer and sell it at a good price, I will. (assuming it's worth a "good" price). Since I could use the cash after I get back, I'll be more motivated to float the project to the top and get it appraised. If they don't turn out to be worth much, I'll just save money over the next few years on not buying whiskey, and drinking something with a great story behind it!

At one time there must have existed more than one crate in the family. When my dad passed away in 2009, I found a half drunk bottle of the exact same stuff in his liquor cabinet. Since the bottle itself doesn't carry any particular identifying marks, I would never have known it was from the same vintage if I didn't have the crate bottles to compare to.


That was from the already opened bottle. All 12 crate bottles are unopened. Tasted like standard 10-12 year Glenlivet. As others have noted, Whisky stops aging after bottled, so no miraculous way to turn it into 20 year single malt. But, it wasn't turned, so thats a good sign for the unopened bottles.

I did end up carefully opening the crate to inspect the bottles inside, see what kind of condition they were in. Overall condition was excellent. Boxes showed a bit of damage at the bottom half, possibly from humidity, but labels in good condition and no sign of mold or other damage to the upper neck area that could impact the seal.

Here's a few pics from that:










Before I left, I had done some more work on dating the bottles and asked around on a whisky forum.
They sent the bottle and crate images to a contact at Glenlivet, who came back with some immensely valuable information for dating the bottles. Turn out bottle dating is tricky for that time period, however the importer and distributor info tells us a lot:
  1. Leeds (marked on the bottles) became the importer in 1948
  2. The company in Mount Vernon (marked on the shipping crates) became the official distributor in 1963.
Thus concluding that it puts the crate at 1963 at the earliest.

I just did some window shopping over at www.thewhiskyexchange.com (a retail site) to see what I could dig up in their vintage bottles for sale section. It's not too useful for determining actual valuation (retail price often doesn't reflect it's value!)

The label design that seems to nearly match mine exactly (particularly the "The" in The Glenlivet is found on bottles listed as being bottled in 1969. Labels from the 1970's are very different, its clearly pre 1970. And a label from 1950 also looks very different.

Pricing on the site: All of the pre-1970 whisky on the site is 18-21 year aged stuff, so no pricing help there. Bottles of 12 year vintage like mine from the 1970's are listed at £175, but again, that doesn't reflect real world "value".

The final piece of the puzzle is centered around the mysterious number codes on the box that dijit's old timer JD friend was looking at.
64
---
86
232
That one is a bit of a puzzle. Based on the evidence, I think its highly probable that 64 is the bottling date. it's post '63 and pre '70, fitting all known evidence to this point.

I'm at a loss to guess what the 86 is then. And 232 could certainly be the cask number.

BEST CONCLUSION SO FAR:

Distilled in 1952
Bottled in 1964
Value: Maybe $150/bottle. Could be double that to a collector that wants the whole case, or half of that. Further inquiry is required in that field.
History: I would be willing to bet that my father acquired the case from my grandmother's cellar when she moved out of their large ancestral home and retired to Florida sometime around 1995-2000. My grandfather was a restaurateur and easily could have purchased a few cases through his own bar to keep around the house for drinking.
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