A bottle of whisky recovered from a shipwreck that inspired the film Whisky
Galore! has been sold at auction for nearly £13,000.

The bottle was sold by the Nicola Hastie, daughter of Dundee-based poet
Donald McLaren. The former DC Thompson journalist, who died in 2016, had
won it in a poetry competition in 1987 after it had been salvaged by divers
from the wreck of the SS Politician, the Dundee Courier reported.

Locals on Eriksay in the Outer Hebrides had famously pillaged the vessel of
its cargo of 28,000 whisky cases after it ran aground in 1941. This had led
to frantic – and often unsuccessful – attempts by the authorities to
recover the bottles, and inspired Compton McKenzie to publish Whisky
Galore! in book form in 1947. The film version was one of three made about
the incident.

It was sold by the Grand Whisky Auction, which in September last year had
also conducted the previous sale of a bottle recovered from the wreck, also
in 1987.

While the sale price was more the result of the history of the bottle than
its vintage status, the fact it was so sought after is a reminder of how *whisky
investment* can pay dividends when it comes to eventually selling it on to
a keen collector.

The bottle had been expected to fetch between £5000 and £6,000, but it
reached £12,925 after a bidding war between two mystery bidders. The
ultimate fate of the bottle is not yet known, but Ms Hastie, who will share
the proceeds with her brother, said they hoped it would end up on public
display.

She remarked: “I received an email each time there was a new bid and I
literally couldn’t keep up with it. I was in shock but it was lovely.”

Ironically, one whisky which did not prove so popular was a blended whisky
actually named SS Politician. Launched in the 1990s by a company of the
same name, each bottle contained a small amount of the salvaged whisky, but
it never captured the public imagination and the company folded.