Expert: Paul Wagner - 11/17/2007

Question
QUESTION: I came into possession of a fifth of white horse about 20 years ago.It was given to my stepfather by the captain of a British freighter.I have been trying to find out more about it,maybe when it was distilled from a number on the label but have had no luck so far.The number shows as NO.295553 with AE above the NO.Exported by White Horse Distillers LTD.Glasgow Scotland .Sole importers for the U.S.A Browne -Vintners Company New York City New York.

ANSWER: HI Rick

Let's start off with the easy answer--I can't tell you how old the bottle is!  Browne Vintners no longer exists, and the numbers that companies use to date their bottles are a proprietary code, for many reasons.  But I can give you a bit more information about older Scotches...

Older whiskeys simply don't appreciate in value the way great wines do.  The high alcohol levels keep the whiskey from changing ( either better or worse ) so connoisseurs don't see any reason to pay more for an older bottle.  It tastes pretty much the same as a new bottle.  The aging in barrel is what changes whiskey...

So that's a long way of saying you might have a hard time getting a connoisseur to pay more than about $35 for this...But a bottle collector might pay more...Check out some of the information on this site, if you are interested:

antiquebottles.com

Sorry I can't be the bearer of better news--but I am an expert on beverages, not bottles!

Paul Wagner


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: The bottle is unopened and the number on the bottle seems to be a serial number directly on the label that was placed on the bottle at the time of bottling .I was hoping that it might give me some idea of when it was distilled and bottled. I noticed that on on site with white horse for sale the numbers on those bottles were in the 5 millions.

Answer
Hi Rick

The bottles were almost certainly NOT numbered sequentially.  Most bottling lines use a kind of code for tracking the day, and even the hour, when they were bottled.  But there are always a couple of numbers in there that are added just to confused things...and often they use the Julian day, rather than our traditional day/month/year system.  So the number 01032 could refer to February 2nd of 2001, (the 32nd day of that year) or is could refer to March 1st (the first day of the third month)...and there are lots of other possibilities.  Companies try to hide this information to keep consumers from creating special interest in a single month or week of bottling...they don't want consumers to understand this well enough to decipher the code and then reject certain numbers when they see them on the product.

I am sorry this isn't easier

Paul Wagner