Utah distillers taste 150-year-old alcohol uncovered at former mining town
Archaeologists uncovered a 150-year-old bottle of alcohol during a summer excavation at a former Wild West mining town in Alta, Utah. The rare find — the only intact bottle with liquid from that era ever discovered in the state — was later brought to High West Distillery. (Source: FOX 13)
Officials recently unveiled a collection of 130-year-old wine that was covertly hidden beneath a chapel floor in a medieval castle.
The wine cache was found at Bečov Castle in the western Czech Republic, a nearly-700-year-old medieval fortress dating to the early 14th century.
After careful restoration by the prestigious French winery Château d'Yquem, the bottles were put on display at the castle earlier in June.
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The collection consists of 133 bottles dating from 1892 to 1899, Reuters reported, and the alcohol was likely hidden there at the end of World War II.
Bečov Castle, near the German border, was confiscated by then-Czechoslovakia after World War II because its owners, the Beaufort-Spontin family, were labeled Nazi sympathizers.
A collection of 133 bottles of wine dating from 1892 to 1899 is now on display at Bečov Castle after careful restoration by Château d'Yquem. (Eva Korinkov/Reuters)
Toni El Khawand, Château d'Yquem's cellar master, told Reuters that the wine benefited "from very good conditions of conservation."
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The wine was stored in an old underground chapel with thick walls that was "very humid and very cold" — conditions that El Khawand said were ideal for preserving it.
"Those were excellent conditions to store a wine."
"It preserved the moisture and temperature in a very constant way," he said. "Those were excellent conditions to store a wine."
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The restoration was so careful that preservationists even kept the dust that had accumulated on the bottles, El Khawand said.
Though the display is new, officials have known about the wine for quite some time.
Officials recently unveiled a cache of 130-year-old wine that had been hidden beneath a chapel floor at Bečov Castle for decades. (Eva Korinkov/Reuters)
The bottles were discovered in 1985 after an American businessman hired by the Beaufort-Spontin family sought permission to recover a hidden object, prompting authorities to uncover the cache.
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In 2016, experts tested the wine's quality by extracting a sample with a Coravin device, which uses a needle to pierce the cork without damaging it.
Discoveries involving centuries-old food and drink are rare but not unheard of.
Restoration experts credited the underground chapel's cool, humid conditions with helping preserve the historic wine collection for generations. (Eva Korinkov/Reuters)
Earlier in 2026, experts in Utah used a Coravin device to extract a sample from a 150-year-old bottle of alcohol unearthed at a former mining town.
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After additional research, experts concluded the Utah bottle most likely contained apple cider rather than beer.
Reuters contributed to this report.
