A man accidentally stumbled upon a smuggler's treasure (4 photos)

Austin Contegiacomo initially thought it was just trash, but upon closer inspection, he realized it was an old glass bottle shaped like a flask with a dark liquid inside. There was another container sticking out of the sand nearby.





The 28-year-old Coast Guard lifeguard was out for a walk after his shift when his pet spotted something in the sand. Contegiacomo initially thought it was just trash, but upon closer inspection, he realized it was an old glass bottle shaped like a flask with a dark liquid inside. There was another container sticking out of the sand nearby. He ended up collecting 11 bottles labeled Lincoln Inn.

After consulting with experts, it became known that the bottles were produced by the Canadian distillery Lincoln Inn, which began operations in the 1930s and closed in the 1970s. According to experts, the shape of the bottles and the carving on the neck indicate production in the 1930s-1940s, although some do not rule out that the whiskey may be even older.



The rescuer suggested that the bottles could have been part of a bootlegger's cache during the Prohibition era. Previously, the area of ​​the pier near which the find was made had been dredged, which may have led to the destruction of the cache and the bottles being thrown ashore. During the years of Prohibition, contraband alcohol was often delivered by sea and hidden on the coast for resale.





According to Contegiacomo, the level of liquid in the bottles remained approximately the same, indicating that seawater did not get inside. He gave the whiskey he found to his colleagues, but no one has yet dared to try it.