The oldest alcohol

Ancient things have always attracted people. They are able to create some special mood around themselves, for which collectors are ready to pay fabulous money. But when it comes to alcoholic beverages that have a solid age, both interest and prices increase many times over. We offer a look at the virtual "wine cellar", where each jug, amphora or bottle is more than one hundred years old. Of course, most of these wines can no longer boast of exquisite taste qualities - time does not spare even him - but as an archaeological exhibit, it is certainly interesting.

(Total 15 photos)

1. In this jug, which was found in the Iranian region of Haji Firuz Tepe, traces of wine were found, the age of which is about 7 thousand years.

2. A glass amphora with wine from a Roman sarcophagus of the 4th century. A third of the volume of the amphora was occupied by olive oil, which protected the wine from souring.

3. German Bremen wine Rüdesheimer Apostelwein. The wine dating back to 1653 is already completely unfit for consumption. But the wine of 1727 is one of the oldest wines on earth that you can drink. The wine is stored in the cellar of Bremen City Hall. Here are 12 large barrels, covered with intricate carvings, containing wines from the 17th and 18th centuries. Each barrel is named after one of the twelve apostles. The oldest wine dates back to 1653 and has deteriorated over time.

The 1727 wine from Rüdesheim, in the Judas cask, is still usable. In the XVIII century, this wine enjoyed the glory of the best. It was never sold, but only presented as a gift to famous statesmen and kings.

After a bottle of precious wine was decanted from a huge 3000-liter barrel, it was topped up with the best young Rüdesheim wine. This allowed the old wine to feed on the sugar and juices of the young and retain its freshness. But even today, most of the volume of the “Judas barrel” is precisely the ancient wine, since it was given extremely rarely and in small quantities.

The bottles for this unique wine, shown in the photograph, were made in the 50s of the last century.

4. Tokay wine (Hungary), dating back to 1680. You can no longer drink it.

5. Sherry Massandra Sherry de la Frontera 1775 - one of the most expensive wines in the world. The price of one bottle at the 2001 auction was $43,500.

6. The price of a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1787 in 1985 was $156,000.

7. Bottles of champagne of the famous brand "Veuve Clicquot", found among the cargo of a ship that sank in the 19th century off the coast of the Aland Islands in the Baltic Sea. The bottles were raised from a depth of 50 meters.

8. Rum Vieux Rhum Anglai 1830. It is considered the oldest rum to date.

9. Bottles of rye whiskey and a bottle of gin. Before the whiskey was bottled in 1863, it was aged for 50 years in oak barrels. Today it is a family heirloom of the US Ambassador to the UK.

10. Bottle of Armagnac 1865 from Gascony.

11. Whiskey 1870-80s from US Army and Navy stores. Today it is one of the oldest surviving whiskeys.

12. And, finally, a few exhibits that are not related to wine. A whole bottle of Coca-Cola dating back to 1902-1905.

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14. In 1990, archaeologists found an ancient Egyptian brewery from the time of Queen Nefertiti (c. 1351-1334 BC), in the fermentation tanks of which beer wort was preserved, which allowed scientists to restore a three-thousand-year-old beer recipe. In Scotland, they brewed beer according to this recipe, calling it Tutankhamun Ale (El Tutankhamun). Beer sold for $75 a bottle

15. Coca-Cola twenty years ago. At that time, the famous soda was prepared according to a completely different recipe, and was much tastier than the modern drink of the same name.