How Old Is The World's Oldest Bourbon?

In 2021, an anonymous connoisseur paid $137,000 for a bottle of Old Ingledew bourbon that is thought to be the oldest in the world. This Old Ingledew bourbon is the only surviving member of a set of three bought by financier John Pierpont Morgan at the turn of the 20th century. It's in an amber demijohn-style bottle with the words "Evans & Ragland" stamped in the glass. And for the past few decades, it's been passed through generations of the Drake family in South Carolina, stored in a wooden box with a note that says, according to The Newberry Observer, "Dear Francis, If the Drakes would have all the happiness we wish for them they would be the happiest family in the world. The attached gift is a conversation piece! Maude and James F. Byrnes."

The Drakes knew the bottle was old; it was given to a family member in the 1950s by Supreme Court Justice James Byrnes. But nobody knew exactly how old this bottle of bourbon was until it was passed down to Rex Woolbright (he got it from his uncle), and Woolbright decided to sell it. During auction preparations, Skinner Auctioneers, with the assistance of the University of Georgia, did some Carbon 14 testing that revealed this bourbon is about 260 years old, made somewhere between 1762 and 1802. That's Revolutionary War-era bourbon, possibly from a time when the very first batches were shipped from Kentucky to New Orleans via the Mississippi River.

The origin story of Old Ingledew bourbon is just about as mysterious as the origin story of bourbon itself. It's likely that Old Ingledew was made by an anonymous farmer in Georgia who used it to barter for supplies from merchants and grocers Evans & Ragland. Evans & Ragland likely then bottled it and sold it out of its store. The reason why this can be assumed is that there isn't a distillery on record in Georgia at the time the liquor was made, and it was common practice for farmers to make their own liquor at this time. (After all, bourbon is only made from grain, yeast, and water.)

John Pierpont Morgan did buy the bottle sometime in the late 19th century or early 20th century, but how and when is a bit unclear. One version of the story says he got the bottle in a set of three from Evans & Ragland on a trip to Georgia in the late 19th century. Other research suggests the bottle was part of an order of whiskey and Madeira bought in 1902 from the Ridgely family in Maryland. The three bottles stayed in Morgan's cellar until his death when they were split up and given as gifts to Supreme Court Justice James Byrnes, and two other well-known figures of American history: Harry S. Truman, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Thanks to this fascinating story, Old Ingledew puts other expensive bourbons you can buy to shame.