What is the oldest, unopened bottle of Bourbon known to exist?

[SippinJim]

Anybody know for sure? Gotta be out there somewhere.

[boone]

Anybody know for sure? Gotta be out there somewhere.

I have a unopened bottle of Old Heaven Hill, 100 proof, 28 years old. Old for sure, but I don't know if it's the oldest that still exists, unopened.

[BourbonJoe]

I have an unopened bottle of 100 proof, 15 year old Bourbon made in 1916, for the stockholders of National Distillers and made by R.E. Wathens.
Joe

[SippinJim]

I have an unopened bottle of 100 proof, 15 year old Bourbon made in 1916, for the stockholders of National Distillers and made by R.E. Wathens.
Joe

That's startin' to get old!

[boone]

Anybody know for sure? Gotta be out there somewhere.

I tried to edit my post but time expired. The bourbon "inside" my bottle is 28 years old. There's two ways to answer your question.

Randy Blank had som really old bourbon from Bellmont. He let many SB.com folks taste it...He donated a full gallon of it to the Getz. Randy can fill us in on the details

[doubleblank]

Here's a pic of the bottles as displayed at the Getz. This whiskey was distilled in 1898 and bottled in 1916. These gallons had information regarding being bottled for shareholders too. I'll bet the Getz has unopened bottles with whiskey distilled prior to 1898.

Randy

[ThomasH]

I took my kids to a local museum during spring break and in one part they had a recreated city street from the early part of the 20th century. In the recreated saloon, they had a still sealed bottle of Old Overholt BIB rye. The made date was 1911 but I couldn't make out the bottled date. It could possibly have been bottled as early as 1915!

Thomas

[full_proof]

Here's a pic of the bottles as displayed at the Getz. This whiskey was distilled in 1898 and bottled in 1916. These gallons had information regarding being bottled for shareholders too. I'll bet the Getz has unopened bottles with whiskey distilled prior to 1898.

Randy

OMG! The Holy Grail of Bourbon!

[TNbourbon]

OMG! The Holy Grail of Bourbon!

My God, I'm a knight (Hail, King Randy I!)! Errant, I suspect .

[JasonFalls]

Just for gits and shiggles, I asked Bill Samuels Jr.'s assistant if she had a moment today to ask him the question. He said he has no idea what the oldest is, but has a bottle of unopened bourbon from 1880. He didn't provide any details, but my guess is it's from the Samuels family line of bourbon which dates back five generations from Bill Jr.

I'll gladly pursue more details and report back.