Dungourney 1964 - Help please!

[Exciseman]

I've seen two sets of photos of "Dungourney 1964" on the Internet. However, there were significant differences between them, viz:

1. Inside front door of box - Printed narrative sheet and wooden ‘holding’ bar on the first set of photos, but not on the second set.
2. Key – Tassles on the key in the first set of photos, but not on the second set.
3. Neck of bottle – Black “1964 Whiskey” label on first set of photos, but not on the second set.
4. Locking mechanism on inside of front and back doors – Small ‘single hole’ on the first set of photos, but ‘double’ on the second set.
5. Inside bottom of box – Flat in the first set of photos, but half-circle indent on the second set.
6. Neck support – Black neck support in box in the first set of photos, but not on the second set.

One possibility is that one bottle is a fake. The other possibility is that a simplistic packaging was used initially (second set of photos), but that this was replaced by a more fancy packaging (first set of photos). Or, indeed, that there were two quite separate batches bottled.

Can anyone shed any light please?

[varizoltan]

if you could post pictures, than i can check and compare to mine

[Exciseman]

Hi there


I'm not very good at that, I'm afraid. The first set were on WhiskyAuction.com though

[Good Whiskey Hunting]

There are a few different boxes that I've seen over the years.
If you look at Irish Whiskey Chaser site it shows a different box to the one you mentioned on whiskyauction.com (bottle 1238).
I've a 2 bottles at home with a different type keys and locks too. One (bottle1057) is similar to the auction one but the other's(887) has an more ornate lock and hinges but no wooden 'holding' bar.
The locks and hinges have changed over the years. The Midletons 25 & 26 locks(similar to 887) are different to the 1973 30 year old(similar to 1057) so they may have changed manufacturers over the years.
The inside of both boxes are green velvet not black. The bottles are similar too. I would think the "1964 whiskey" label was missing of the other bottle you seen. they even look messy on mine with excess of glue or whatever is used to stick it on.

I'd love to know more about Dungourney 1964 and how many were produced. We tasted it last November and it was lovely, I'm sure some history was mentioned but I afraid I was not paying attention.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Yes the Dungourney 1964 is a curious beast and originally was released as a lost barrel. Basically a barrel that was not on the inventory and found at the back of one of the old dunnage warehouses. However going by numbers it is very possible it may have been 2 or more casks. As that really is the only way to explain the multitude of bottles released. However these bottles were only released on a very limited basis yearly. i.e. maybe a 100 were released every year for arguments sake. This meant that the Dungourney was released over a long number of years and I think the final release was only about 3 years ago. There fore there will be variations of the finer details of the box but the box itself should be very similar all the way through but yes variations will be a factor.