Aimee Walker
An Antiques Roadshow expert was left surprised after learning what was inside a 180-year-old bottle he’d drank from.
The popular daytime TV show follows a team of specialists touring towns throughout the U.K. to value items brought in by the public.
In one viral episode, one of its experts was so intrigued by an ancient bottle he decided to drink what was inside it without knowing what it was.
After learning what was inside the bottle, people reacted on social media.
One person questioned: “Why the hell would you drink anything out of a 200-year-old bottle?”
Agreeing, a second said: “They really shouldn’t have opened it.”
“It could have contained something deadly,” pointed out someone else.
While a fourth wrote: “The last one should have smelled it before tasting it.”
The bottle was brought onto the program in 2016 by a man named John, who said he found it buried in his house.
Keen to learn what was inside, he took it to the roadshow.
Thankfully, glass specialist Andy McConnell was around to offer his expertise – but it’s safe to say he got more than he bargained for.
The expert dated the bottle back to the 1800s and suspected it was filled with either port or red wine.
Port wines are strong and typically come in dark red, however, they can also be brown or white.
McConnell said: “How brilliant,” before adding that it was ‘very brown.’
Intrigued by the mysterious liquid, the expert inserted a syringe into the bottle’s cork to taste some of the substance with his fingers.
As he did so, the audience watched in quiet anticipation, which eventually led to nervous giggling.
The specialist summarized: “I think it is port or red wine. It’s one or the other. Or, it’s full of rusty old nails and that’s rust.”
Yet three years later, McConnell would learn he was very wrong.
Antique Roadshow‘s Fiona Bruce delivered the gruesome news to the glass specialist, and it turned out what was in the bottle was even worse than ‘rusty old nails.’
The host told McConnell: “Last time you were together, John and Andy, was in Trelissick. You brought along this bottle in the house. It was buried in the threshold.
“You showed it to Andy and you decided to have a go at tasting the contents.”
McConnell joked he was ‘always the naughty boy at school’ and added the bottle was ‘too good an opportunity to miss.’
Bruce informed the expert that Loughborough University had examined the bottle’s content by X-raying and pouring it out.
“You thought it might be port or wine. That would have been nice. In actual fact – you said it tasted really rusty,” the host continued.
“Inside were these brass pins, all of these dating from the late 1840s. Then the liquid – urine, a tiny bit of alcohol, and one human hair.”
Pulling a face, McConnell responded: “Lovely.”
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