A Titanic discovery

They say if you want good French dressing, go to France. For Italian food, you can't beat Italy.

And so it goes that if you want the best Scotch whisky, you need to get to Scotland. Go ahead. You take the high road and I'll take the low road.

I'm sure there are liquor stores all over Scotland, land of plaid and bagpipes, but here's a chance to spend a small fortune on a bottle of hooch you aren't even supposed to drink (but wouldn't it make a cool display piece on your mantel?

Dateline: Eriskay, in the Outer Hebrides, February, 1941. The British cargo ship known as the SS Politician runs aground, taking everything from biscuits to cotton goods for customers in Jamaica and New Orleans.

Oh, and whisky. 264,000 bottles of whisky.  And if one of those bottles should happen to fall, 263,999 bottles of whisky on the wall.

Fun fact: They take this stuff seriously! Whisky is booze from Scotland, Canada, or Japan. Whiskey refers to distilled grain spirits from Ireland and the United States.

One result of this was that suddenly, a large percentage of the populations of the Outer Hebrides took up an interest in deep-sea diving.

After giving everyone plenty of time to scavenge what they could, the locals blew up the hull of the foundering Politician (no comment) to sink the ship, and still, now and then, a bottle of sauce would bob to the surface.

One of those bottles of hoochy-koo was salvaged by pro diver George Currie and is up for auction this month at Scotland’s Grand Whisky Auction. Last reported bid was $8,000, and while the bad news is that the firewater is "not suitable for human consumption," the winning bidder will also get a diver's helmet and a couple of bricks from the ship.


There was so much whisky on board that—following an initial rush among locals to rescue what they could from the foundering ship—freeloaders would still be recovering bottles nearly half a century later, even after the ship’s hull was blown up and sunk to discourage more salvage (that is, looting). Some washed up on local beaches, and others were brought up by divers. One of the latter, found by professional diver George Currie in 1987, is now up for sale at  where bidding will close on August 10, 2020. At press time, the bottle was already going for nearly $8,000. Though the auction house warns unequivocally that the “bottle is not suitable for human consumption,” the winning bidder will also be treated to a diving helmet and bricks from the ship itself.

Hey, wait a minute. The ship was carrying bricks? No wonder it sank!

Also packed aboard the ill-fated Politician: 290,000 10-shilling Jamaica bills, In 1958, the government announced that 211,267 of them had been accounted for, leaving 78,733 of them, well, unaccounted for.

I wouldn't know anything about them, guv'nor.