Shipwreck yields 'drinkable' 200-year-old liquor

Archaeologist Tomasz Bednarz with the stoneware bottle. Photo: National Maritime Museum/Facebook

The bottle was plucked from the seabed during a survey carried out under the auspices of the National Maritime Museum in Gdansk in June and July.

The stoneware piece is embossed with the name Selters – a noted soda-producing village in Germany's Taunus mountains – and its cork was still perfectly in place.

However, experts at the Gdynia laboratory found that the substance inside the bottle was not soda water but a 14 percent strength liquor.

Scientists have suggested that the drink may be a form of gin, a matter which will be clarified during further tests.

Tomasz Bednarz, an archaeologist at the National Maritime Museum, has assured that drinking the concoction “would not cause poisoning.”

However, he acknowledged that the liquor “does not smell particularly good.”

Archaeologists are of the opinion that the sunken boat was constructed in the early nineteenth century, and that it was used to ferry goods locally.

The survey of the vessel was financed by the Ministry of Culture, and besides the bottle, several other items were retrieved from the wreck, including various pieces of ceramics. (nh)

Source: PAP