Queen’s whisky raises $50k for US hospital

A bottle of 1980 Bowmore Single Malt Whisky, donated by the Queen from her private collection, has raised $50,000 at a charity auction in the US.

Two bottles have been donated by the Queen as part of the Regions Hospital Foundation’s 26th annual Wine Auction fundraiser, which is based in Minnesota. 

The bottles come from The Queen’s Cask, a barrel of whisky given to Queen Elizabeth during a visit to the Bowmore Distillery in Scotland in 1980. Since the whisky was bottled in 2002, three bottles have been donated to charity each year.

The first was sold at the event on 19 September to an anonymous bidder, who has become the first American to own one of the commemorative bottles. Previously, bottles donated from this cask have fetched prices of more than $65,000 each.

Money raised from the auction will help the Regions Hospital Burn Center, which opened in 1963 and treats patients injured in oil field explosions, house fires or severe frost bite.

Sarah Bazey, co-chair of the Wine Auction, spent 50 days at the centre after a helicopter crash in 1994 in which she suffered severe burns to 40% of her body. The link to the royal whisky comes through Bazey’s old university classmate Simon Berry, chairman of Royal drinks merchant Berry Bros. & Rudd, which has supplied the Royal family since 1760.

The second bottle is set to be auctioned off on 20 November by Bonham’s auction house in New York. The hospital says it will consider other bids before sending off the bottle in the hopes of raising more money.