Old Salt Blog – a virtual port of call for all those who love the sea

Two bottles of whisky salvaged from the wreck of the cargo ship SS Politician have been sold for £12,050 after an online auction.   The wreck inspired the novel “Whisky Galore” and the movie of the same name.

Whisky Galore bottles fetch £12,050

On February 3, 1941, the SS Politician, an 8,000-ton general cargo ship departed Liverpool and sailed into history. More precisely, she sailed into a gale and ran aground off the Island of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides.  Her crew escaped unharmed and were cared for by local islanders, who learned that the Politician’s cargo included 264,000 bottles of Scotch whiskey.  The locals, whose whiskey had run out due to war time rationing, decided to claims rights of salvage and help themselves to the cargo. Customs officials took a different view and considered the pilfering of the cargo to be simply stealing. Local fisherman are believed to have taken around 24,000 bottles of whisky, before the wreck was sunk with explosives. Compton Mackenzie wrote a novel, Whiskey Galore, based on the events, published in 1947. In 1949, the novel was made into a movie, titled Whiskey Galore! released in the United States as Tight Little Island.

In 1987 Donald MacPhee, a local South Uist man, found eight bottles of whisky in the wreck.  Recently two of the eight bottles were sold at auction. Sadly, the whiskey is not believed to be fit for human consumption.  Thanks to Irwin Bryan for passing the story along.