150-year-old Chinese liquor sells for $700,000

Ninety kilograms of the white liquor distilled in 1845 were discovered during the dismantling of an old workshop in the north-eastern Chinese province of Liaoning. The drink originally held in four ancient containers has been included in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest cellar-stored white spirit.

Zhang Guangxin the director of Lingchuan Daoguang Liquor Company which unearthed the spirits in June 1996 said the money raised at the auction in Guangzhou, south China would be spent on researching and protecting unearthed liquor.

90 kilos is quite a bit of booze, so the price per gram comes out to only $7.78 -- which with the Guinness Book imprimatur, might make for a tidy profit in selling the stuff off by the vial. From the BBC.

Posted by David on July 11, 2003 11:53 AM