Upstate New York couple finds more than 66 bottles of Prohibition-era whiskey stashed in walls of new house
Sixty-six bottles of whiskey — in the walls!
A New York couple hit the jackpot when they discovered more than 66 bottles of Prohibition-era whiskey stashed inside the walls of their new house, CNN reported.
Nick Drummond and Patrick Bakker, who made the mind-boggling discovery in early October, said they found the bottles hidden amongst hay, wire, and glass during home renovations while removing skirting from the outside of their house.
“Initially we found seven bundles of six in the wall, and then at that point, we found four more bundles, and actually, funny enough, as of less than a week ago, we just found more,” Drummond told CNN.
Drummond and Bakker said a real estate agent told them their house in Ames — a village about 50 miles east of Albany — was built in 1915 by a bootlegger.
The couple chalked up the agent’s story as a local legend until they discovered the expensive Scottish whiskey packages labeled “Old Smuggler Gaelic whiskey.”
“I’m like, holy crap. This is like a whiskey stash. And this is like, all of a sudden, the whole story of the bootlegger,” Drummond told CNN.
A designer and historic preservationist, Drummond said the discovery led him to research the house’s original owner, Adolph Humpfner.
From there, things just got crazier.
“It was a mystery to locals at the time how he amassed his fortune. He owned a local bank, the school gymnasium, and 23 properties in NYC and NJ. After his death, multiple secret compartments were found in his truck and businesses but they could never prove anything!” Drummond wrote of Humpfner on his Instagram page.
“There were also papers strewn around his home with deeds to various properties, foreign bank accounts, and aliases. There was a huge drama over who got his fortune after his death.”
What Humpfner may have left in Drummond’s walls amounts to a small fortune.
Drummond told CNN that he and Bakker intend to preserve the empty or evaporated bottles they found in the walls.
As for the ones full of whiskey, the couple plans to sell them for approximately $1,000 each.
Cha-ching!
