Debunking the Supposedly-Ancient Ingledew Whiskey

Skinner Auctioneers' dating method used a quirk of science that can be performed with many old whiskeys to make them appear to be from eras they're not actually from.
Auctioneer's assessment that the whiskey was produced circa the late 1700s.

Headline from Skinner website states a belief ascribed to no actual person.On June 30, 2021, Skinner Auctions in Boston sold what was promoted as “Old Ingledew Whiskey: Currently Believed to be the Oldest Known Whiskey in Existence.” The auctioneer assessed “the whiskey was produced circa the late 1700s.” No other whiskeys are remotely that old.

The selling price was $137,500, setting a new record for American whiskey.

 

But the dating claim was nonsense. After LAWS published a detailed exposé, the buyer reportedly backed out of the sale. (The whiskey's fate remains undisclosed by the auction house).

 

The auctioneer's announcement touted radiocarbon dating data which, to the average person, made it seem like the whiskey dates from the late 1700s. The press ate it up with global headlines. But what the press didn't know is that "ancient" test results for old whiskies are common -- but inaccurate. Due to the peculiarities of carbon dating, it's not unusual to see 18th century results, and even 17th century results, for whiskies which do not remotely date from those times. Prior to the Ingledew bottle, such "too old" results have been ignored by experts as impossible.

To "date" the whiskey, the auctioneer ignored the observable evidence on the bottle itself, then cherry-picked the most favorable parts of their lab data and exploited that to support a massive sale.

 

It turns out that anyone can perform the same basic carbon dating "trick" by taking some old whiskeys (pre-1955) and submitting samples to a few different radiocarbon labs. It’s likely that one if not all of those labs' results will show a good “chance” of distillation in the 1700s or earlier... even though that's not when the whiskey is from.

That's not because radiocarbon science is bad -- it isn't -- and the details are a bit too complex to explain here. But trained archaeologists will tell you that radiocarbon data should not be used the way Skinner used it. (It's important to understand that scientists/labs don't decide when a whiskey dates from. They only supply raw data. The recipient of that data then decides how to use it, in this case Skinner). 

 

Not only did no actual scientist determine Skinner's supposedly scientific "belief," but not a single person working at Skinner was quoted as actually believing the "belief." Nobody took credit for it. To make matters worse, Skinner's own "whiskey specialist" Joe Hyman even made it clear that when it came to the radiocarbon data, he had “no idea how to interpret that stuff.” Hyman used words like "may" and "could" when discussing the dating assessment.

So if the whiskey specialist didn't assess the whiskey... who did? Whoever it was, the result was global headlines and a huge sale. At least until LAWS blew the whistle.

 

Detailed report exposing the problems of the whiskey claim. Screenshot.The PDF report linked here, Ingledew Exposed, is the deep dive published shortly after the auction ended. The auctioneer has yet to dispute it. And despite a report after the auction that Skinner's specialist was "still following paper trails of old records" with "plenty of threads to pull," no further findings have been published.

Perhaps the most noticebable development since the exposé is that Skinner (now Bonhams Skinner) stopped publishing carbon dating results in their whiskey auctions.

So what is the Ingledew? If it's not a refill (see below), then it's probably whiskey from about 1870. Which is cool. But the Ingledew's biggest legacy may always be its embarrassing example of how not to evaluate an historic whiskey.

 



For those interested in more details:

 

• The glass bottle itself can be dated to circa 1867 - 1876, due to the documented history of the merchant who sold it in LaGrange, GA.

• The auctioneer’s dating assessment revolved around two pieces of radiocarbon data showing a “53.1% probability” and a “42.9% probability" the whiskey was distilled between 1760 - 1803. As mentioned, test results showing 18th century possibilities are fairly common for old whiskeys (specifically whiskeys distilled before 1955) even when they're not from that era.

• The scientific analyses the auctioneer received also showed the bottle could be filled with whiskey from 1929 - 1954, which would make the bottle a refill, i.e. an old bottle that was refilled or topped-off with new whiskey sometime in the mid 20th century. The possibilities of that were not fully explained in the auctioneer's press release.

• To explain the quirk of science Skinner took advantage of, basically: for all whiskey made prior to 1955, carbon dating will give a 300-year range of results: "It's from sometime within this 300 year period, but definitely within these 300 years." So all whiskey made prior to 1955 will "date" from about 1650 to 1955. Where Skinner blundered was in trying to "drill down" on bits of data within that 300-year range -- data their specialist admitted he didn't even understand. A computer model had spit out probabilities as to what specific years (within the larger 300-year period) the whiskey might be from. Skinner picked the most-profitable possibility, concocted far-fetched stories to support it, and ran with it. Obviously that's not very scientific.

• The probabilities in carbon dating whiskey aren't like real-world probabilities. They are hypotheticals based on computer models. So a “50% dating probability” is not like the 50% chances of a coin flip. As a demonstration of that: it is not uncommon for some old whiskeys to receive around a 25% "chance" that they are from 1650 to 1699. But the reality of a whiskey actually being from those years is virtually impossible, given historic factors. Yet with "chances" around 25%, we'd expect a handful of whiskeys to have been discovered by now that actually are from the 17th century. None exist.

• A “starting from scratch” investigation might show the circa 1870 glass bottle contains whiskey that is period-correct, i.e. whiskey distilled around that era. That would make it an extremely old whiskey, but there are other whiskeys that old and older.

• In open disclosure, I (Adam) own the genuine, rigorously evaluated, and proven “oldest whiskey” (1847). Authentication took four years of working with Guinness World Records, independent whiskey experts from around the world, a US glass historian, rare book libraries, two carbon dating labs (Oxford and Glasgow) using double-blind and controlled protocols, and other research. For the 1847 whiskey, radiocarbon testing also "dated" it to the 18th century: the years 1715 - 1785, with a 44.7% chance. That was the "best chance" and highest probability of all. That is higher than Skinner’s original 42.9% result for their whiskey, and not much less than the 53.1% statistic they listed in the auction, but obviously I didn't try to claim the 1847 whiskey was "really" from the 1700s. Carbon dating results must be applied very carefully and viewed in context of all other evidence.

• See the 10 page report published after the auction for a whole lot more information.
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