Old Fitgerald 1961 6yo

[Tim F]

Hope you chaps can help with this one.

I have the opportunity to buy an old decanter of Old Fitzgerald 1961 aged 6 years. Aside from the contents, which I would expect to be pretty amazing, it's a very pretty, tall slim decanter with a red and gold pattern screenprinted on. Are any of you gents familiar with this bottle and what do you think is a fair price I should pay? The asking price is £130 (about $200 or thereabouts).

[BourbonJoe]

The bourbon inside may or may not be palatable based on how it was stored. If good, this pedigree should be very good but IMO not worth anywhere near 200 bucks.

Joe :usflag:

[wadewood]

decanters, like the one you described, are very hit and miss. Often, the producer knew that people collected decanters; not for drinking. IMHO, therefore sometimes they filled these with substandard bourbon. I would let this one stay with it's owner, worth nowhere near $200.

[cowdery]

There are many reasons why such an acquisition is risky, not least because (assuming you are in the United States) the transaction is illegal.

We always say whiskey doesn't change in the bottle but a more precise statement would be that whiskey doesn't change in a well-sealed bottles. That's where decanters often have a problem. Ceramic (as opposed to glass) decanters also seem to have a porosity problem.

You seem to be interested in the decanter as an object. If the decanter alone is worth the asking price to you, then if the whiskey is less than great you won't be too disappointed, but if the quality of the whiskey is what you're buying, it might be great but the odds are not in your favor.

Even assuming the whiskey is intact, a six-year-old Stitzel-Weller from 1961 would be good to very good but it's too young to be great.

[Tim F]

Cheers for all this, gents. I do really like the decanter as an object, but the whiskey quality is a big thing as well as I usually end up opening everything I eventually. I have only just started buying old bottles of whisky (Japanese and Scotch), partly because I think some of them are beautiful objects, but also because the ones I've tasted have been great drinking whiskies as well as pieces of history. I want an old bourbon and an old Irish whiskey to kind of complete the set, but I'm going to spend a bit less and resist temptation to open the bottles.

Many thnaks for your replies.

[sgtgto]

I recently purchased some old OF decanters while in Italy. The most difficult part was transporting them. The tops on them are hollow and the corks have a hole in them. Only 1 of the 5 did not leak. The corks had shrunk. One of them has a very slight cork taste to it. The others are very good, the VOF being sublime. Worth 200$ though? I don't think so.

[p_elliott]

Tim you might put on your profile that you are from the UK. That may or may not change advice you get. In this case I don't think it would have. The advice to not buy is sound no matter where you live.