century-old whiskey bottles

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Doing work on his 1850s house Bryan Fite uncovered a hidden stash of century-old whiskey bottles underneath the floorboards in his attic. At first, he thought they were tubes or oddly shaped insulated pipes.

On a closer look, Fite realized they were bottles of whiskey - 13 in total and each sealed with the whiskey still inside.

The whiskey was distilled between 1912 and 1913 and bottled in 1917. The stash included four bottles of Hellman's Celebrated Old Crow whiskey and a few bottles of Guckenheimer, a Pennsylvania rye whiskey, and W. H. McBrayer's Cedar Brook whiskey.

Fite thinks he knows who hid the bottles in the house, which dates to the 1850s. One former owner of the home was forced to give it up when he was sent to a sanitarium for alcoholism.

Now Fite has a possible windfall on his hands. While wine can turn to vinegar if it stays in the bottle too long, whiskey stored under the right conditions won't go bad. And his find comes at a fortuitous time.

Interest in whiskey as an investment has soared over the last five years since the United States made it legal for auction houses to sell spirits. Newly rich entrepreneurs in China and Russia with money to burn are snapping up high-end whiskey along with wine and fine art.