Want the Queen's whisky? Bottle from Buckingham Palace on auction in St. Paul
What may be history's most expensive "last call" will likely be yelled at St. Paul's RiverCentre this weekend.
A bottle of vintage (and incredibly pricey) Bowmore Whisky, a fine Scottish malt that comes directly from Queen Elizabeth II's collection in Buckingham Palace, will be auctioned off at the event space on Saturday, with proceeds benefiting the Regions Hospital Burn Center, according to a press release.
What kind of "proceeds" are we talking? To give you an idea, the hospital says bottles of the 1980 whisky are valued at around $65,000.
The hospital will be auctioning off a second bottle of the stuff at Bonham's international auction house in New York in November.
Both are from "The Queen's Cask," which is a barrel of whisky her majesty got from a 1980 visit to the Bowmore Distillery in Scotland. Since the whisky was bottled in 2002, she has given away three bottles to charity each year.
So how did the Burn Center secure such high-dollar items?
The co-chair of the Wine Auction – where the bottle will be auctioned off in St. Paul on Saturday – is Sarah Bazey, who helped the hospital acquire the two bottles, and it turns out it was a bit of good karma for the burn center.
According to the release, Bazey, a former Mrs. International and Harvard graduate, was in a 1994 helicopter crash that left her with burns to 40 percent of her body. She was treated at Regions for a 50-day period and continues to work with other burn patients as a volunteer.
