Treasure Hunters Raise a Toast

Nine hundred bottles of old booze are new news

Ralph Finch dips his toes into a story of a group of underwater treasure hunters who have salvaged bottles of rare cognac and liqueur from a ship that was sunk by a German U-boat during World War I.

Divers and unmanned underwater vehicles last October hauled up case after case of booze from the Swedish steamer SS Kyros, which has been sitting 250 feet down in the Baltic Sea. They recovered 600 bottles of De Haartman & Co. cognac and 300 bottles of Benedictine liqueur (a brand now owned by Bacardi).

“We don’t know yet if it is drinkable. We get a fraction of smell from the Benedictine bottles and it smells sweet and from herbs,” one salvager said.

The Kyros was on its way to Russia’s St. Petersburg, then known as Petrograd, when it was stopped by German submarine UC58 in 1917.

Russia was ruled by Czar Nicholas II at the time, and “We can’t tell for sure that these bottles were for the Czar himself, but for the nobility around him for sure,” a salvager said.

The German submarine captain had the boat sunk because its cargo was considered contraband. They put explosives in the Kyros’ engine room to sink it.

The wreck was first discovered in 1999 and has been damaged by fishing equip-

ment over the years. The team had to clear away nets so it would be safe for divers to access the wreck.

Also …

Did Lawrence of Arabia Drink These?

I’m reminded of this 2017 report: “In a search for antiquities, Israeli archaeologists have unearthed a far more modern find — century-old bottles that belonged to British soldiers in World War I.

The Israel Antiquities Authority said it was excavating 250,000-year-old flint tools when the archaeologists stumbled upon hundreds of liquor bottles near a building where British soldiers were garrisoned in 1917.

There were uniform buttons, belt buckles and riding equipment found near the city of Ramle, in addition to the bottles of gin, whiskey and wine. The excavation director said it offered a glimpse into “the everyday life and leisure of the soldiers.”

The items appear to have belonged to members of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force commanded by Gen. Edmund Allenby. (FYI: Allenby was the officer who “discovered” Capt. T.E. Lawrence, aka “Lawrence of Arabia.”)

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PHOTOS (previous page):

The happy — but wet and cold — salvagers hold a couple of their discoveries. Bottles salvaged from the wreck.

PHOTOS (this page):

An undersea look at the remains of the SS Kyros. The assemblage of bottles that was revealed in the Israeli excavation near the city of Ramle. (Photo: Clara Amit, courtesy of IAA) Close-up of an excavated Gordon's Dry Gin bottle. Bottles and other artifacts discovered in the British refuse pit. (Photo: Assaf Peretz, courtesy of IAA)