Back in September of last year I found an old bottle on the dried up bed of a depleted reservoir. I blogged about it here.
On Thursday, as I squelched through soft ground and mud to get my pictures of those arum lilies, I spotted another old bottle. It was just lying there, half-submerged in the boggy ground. I picked it up and brought it home.
Yesterday I cleaned it up with hot, soapy water. I was delighted with what emerged - a beautiful old green-tinged scotch whisky bottle. The glass is attractively imperfect. Lord knows how long the bottle had been lying there close to the arum lilies. It is not a place where people would often go so the bottle may have lain in that location for up to a hundred years.
You may perhaps have heard of the scotch whisky brand - Johnnie Walker. Well, before that name was adopted that particular fiery amber liquid was called "Walker's Kilmarnock Whisky" - Kilmarnock being a town in Ayrshire, Scotland.
In the 1860's, the Walker family had the bright idea of using square bottles to assist in the storage and transportation of their whisky. Those bottles were mass-produced using cheap glass manufacturing processes. These green-tinged bottles persisted for at least sixty years so I suspect that the bottle I found was possibly thrown down in the 1920's.
Who discarded it? Perhaps a drunkard who had been drowning his sorrows or a pre-war toff who had been partying in nearby Whirlow Brook Hall. We will never know for those imagined whisky drinkers are already dead.
Glass production methods were much improved by the 1930's and besides by then Walker's Kilmarnock Whisky was known as "Johnnie Walker" with the famous striding man on the label.
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| The base of my new bottle |
My father had a similar bottle in his drinks cabinet
ReplyDeleteWas it empty like mine?
DeleteWhat is it about finding old glass bottles which is so thrilling? I do not know but I know that whenever I find an intact bottle here on this property which is obviously old I get a little thrill. Great finds.
ReplyDeleteThey are from history and in their way quite beautiful.
DeleteNice - it's a strange feeling, isn't it, to handle a piece of history and know that it was last touched by very different hands in a very different time.
ReplyDeleteYes. You are left wondering.
DeleteSteve is going to like that bottle you found. I believe he has a collection of old glass bottles himself.
ReplyDeleteSteve's is small compared with mine.
DeleteP. S. Very worthy photo, by the way.
ReplyDeleteDuring my decluttering phase of late I've given away...not tossed away...a few interesting old bottles I'd kept for many years. I gave them to one of the local Op shops...they were too nice...too interesting to toss into the garbage...in my opinion, anyway.
ReplyDeleteThere is something very lovely about old bottles.
DeleteNice find! Isn't it fun to find something like that that may have laid buried for so many years. You can't help but wonder who first had that bottle. Do you ever wonder if someday someone will find something that was once yours and wonder about it?
ReplyDeleteGood question. However, I never cast anything aside. I dispose of everything responsibly. Maybe I will carve my name on a rock in the countryside and many years from now someone may see it and wonder.
DeletePick up any old object, hold it and turn it, and it takes on a different existence from something just lying there, and let your imagination do its job.
ReplyDeleteOn that matter, I am tempted to make a mischievous remark about you Tasker but I shall refrain in fear of causing you personal offence!
DeleteNot that old an object.
DeleteNothing quite like an old Victorian rubbish pile, which occasionally comes to light with lots of old bottles. Just love the green colour of your bottle. Hope the gout is clearing away nicely.
ReplyDeleteThank you Thelma. Not gone entirely but much better than it was.
DeleteI love the coloured shadows that glassware gives :)
ReplyDeleteSunlight was beaming into our kitchen DT so I tossed the tea towel over our microwave oven to provide a suitable background.
DeleteWow! What a great find! I'm jealous! :)
ReplyDeleteAre you bottle green with envy Steve?
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