Rare Bottle Of Whiskey Passed Down Through Mellon Family Expected To Sell For $15,000
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - A bottle of coveted whiskey with Pittsburgh roots is expected to go for up to $15,000 at an online auction.
A bottle of 1909 Overholt Rye, which was once owned by Richard Mellon Scaife and passed down by the Mellon family, is set to hit the auction block on Sept. 19.
The online auction, hosted by the Kentucky-based Speed Art Museum, is expected to start at 9 p.m.
The museum says a third of the Overholt distillery was once owned by Henry Clay Frick, the founder's grandson.
When Frick died in 1919, he passed the shares to Andrew Mellon, who they say became the distillery's majority owner.
The museum says before Prohibition in 1920, Mellon and his brothers stored the best barrels of rye from the previous 15 years.
The distillery was then passed to Richard Mellon Scaife, the publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. According to the museum, in 2014, 60 cases of the Overholt Rye whiskey were found in a cellar.
A patron of the Speed Art Museum managed to get his hands on six cases and donated one bottle to the museum.
"A 1.5-ounce pour will set you back $1,250, and that's if you can even get it," bourbon expert Fred Minnick said in a press release.
"It has such a historic taste. They just don't make whiskey like that anymore."
The museum says the Overholt Rye is the "unicorn of whiskeys."
If you happen to love Pittsburgh history, whiskey and have a hefty amount of spare change, the bottle is number 41 on the list out of 54 auction lots. You can learn more about the auction on their website.
