It is not that rare to see certain whisky auctions go into the tens of thousands of dollars. Some old world whisky sales have even been seen in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a Macallan Fine & Rare 60-year old 1926 bottle of whiskey holds the record for a $1.9 million auction price in 2019. But what about a historic bottle of whiskey that happens to be the oldest American bottle of whiskey?

A bottle of America’s oldest whiskey was bottled by Evans & Ragland, Grocers and Commission Merchants in LaGrange, Georgia was originally believed to be from the early 1800s. The bottle was represented to be consistent with glass manufactured from 1840 to 1870, but a carbon dating test now indicates that this bourbon was likely produced (81.1% probability) between 1762 and 1802.

The Skinner auction house is set to auction the Old Ingledew Whiskey over June 22 to June 23, 2021 and the auction estimates were between $20,000 and $40,000 in recent reports.

The Old Ingledew Whiskey also comes with quite interesting provenance and history as well. It is believed to be the only surving of three original bottles. According to Skinner’s release:

The bottle is reported to have been purchased by financier John Pierpont Morgan during one of his frequent visits to Georgia. It is believed that his son, Jack Morgan, later gifted this bottle to James Byrnes of South Carolina and two sister bottles to Franklin D. Roosevelt (a distant cousin to Morgan) and Harry S. Truman, circa 1942-44.

As for the bottle up for auction, there is an important heritage and history as to Mr. Byrnes himself. He was a U.S. Congressman, a U.S. Senator, and a Supreme Court Justice before World War II. After the U.S. entered World War II in 1942, he resigned from the Court to become Director of War Mobilization under his good friend President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After President Roosevelt died in 1945, Byrnes served as Secretary of State under another good friend President Harry S. Truman. Byrnes moved back to South Carolina after his cabinet positions and served as the state’s governor from 1951 to 1955.

This particular bottle ended up changing hands one more time years before the current auction. Byrnes gifted this bottle after leaving politics to a close friend and neighbor named Francis Drake. He, followed by three generations of descendants, owned the prized bottle.

Skinner’s Rare Spirits auction will definitely turn some heads, and it is unknown if this will be owned by a collector or by an investor who solely intends to resell this for a profit down the road.