A whiskey river wasn’t on Austin Contegiacomo’s mind when he found an ocean of it — a Prohibition-era stash, to be exact — washed up on a New Jersey beach while he was walking his dog last month.
Even for a guy who doesn’t drink, it was a rare find. And it has made an even better story to tell.
“The history behind it is part of the mystery and really adds to the allure,” Contegiacomo, 28, a Coast Guard helicopter rescue swimmer from Northfield, New Jersey, told Fox News Digital.
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He had just gotten off a 24-hour duty and decided to take his fuzzy sheepadoodle, Koda, for a walk near Margate Pier, south of Atlantic City.
“I take him to the beach to play just about every day,” Contegiacomo said.
“I was throwing the ball — and my dog tends to rub himself in stuff that smells weird. So there’s this brown bottle in the sand and he starts rubbing on it.”
A New Jersey resident found nearly a dozen Prohibition-era bottles of whiskey that appear to have been perfectly preserved since the 1930s or so. (Austin Contegiacomo)
Contegiacomo said his dog forgot about playing and became very focused on whatever was in the sand.
“I thought, ‘Oh man, it looks like a bottle of pee,’” he said.
“So I was yelling at him to get off it, then maybe five feet ahead was another one. And as soon as he got off that one, he ran up to the next one and started rubbing on that.”
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After Koda discovered a third bottle, Contegiacomo said he began to realize they’d stumbled on something much more interesting than he’d originally thought.
“They were pretty much at the surface,” he said. “And there were a ton of conches and shells and all types of other debris on the beach that day.”
Austin Contegiacomo’s dog Koda is shown sniffing around, head on the sand, on the beach near Atlantic City, New Jersey — where man and dog found 11 mysterious bottles of whiskey. (Austin Contegiacomo)
He added, “I think it was from dredging because they’ve been repairing the beaches and they do it in the winter to get ready for the summer. There hadn’t been any storms, but it was a crazy amount of stuff washed up.”
In total, Contegiacomo and his dog found 11 completely full glass bottles of rare, old whiskey, all with the name Lincoln Inn etched on them.
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Contegiacomo called a friend who did a quick internet search. They learned that Lincoln Inn was produced at a distillery in Montreal in the 1930s and that the company went out of business in the 1970s.
“He said, ‘Dude, there’s really not much info on this, but it looks like it’s old,’” Contegiacomo said. “He said I should definitely keep it and find out more about it.”
Contegiacomo and a friend did some research into the whiskey bottles that turned up on a New Jersey beach. They learned the distillery was located in Montreal and dated back to the 1930s. (Austin Contegiacomo)
So Contegiacomo took off his jacket. He picked up all the bottles — each positioned not far from the others — and stashed them in his jacket.
Then he tied it up like a sack.
‘Bottle-digging’ community
After he got them home, Contegiacomo posted about his find on Reddit, where a “bottle-digging” community as well as a group of whiskey aficionados began to weigh in on the discovery.
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Members of the groups directed Contegiacomo to a diamond shape that was embossed on the bottom of the bottles. It was a mark that was initiated in 1928.
“The bottles have a flask shape,” Contegiacomo said, “and given the type of screw and stuff, most people said it was between 1930s and 1940s.”
The diamond symbol embossed on the bottom of the bottles dates back to 1928, according to some whiskey aficionados who weighed in. (Austin Contegiacomo)
Some of Contegiacomo’s work buddies went back to the beach the next day and found one more bottle — bringing the discovered treasure to an even dozen.
Contegiacomo decided to gift a bottle to each of his friends and to his father.
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“A lot of the guys thought it was super cool,” he said.
“There’s about 10 of us. A lot of the guys are from New Jersey and most people have family around here, so it’s kind of a part of New Jersey’s history – so I ended up giving pretty much all the bottles away to guys I work with.”
A few of the whiskey bottles were clear and others were hazy, which Contegiacomo learned could have to do with filtration.
The shape of the bottles and the screw-top style are among the indicators of the year the whiskey was produced. (Austin Contegiacomo)
“Given the age of it, some people said that could be due to the way it was filtered or the charring, because they used to burn the [whiskey] barrels,” he said.
“The one that I kept for myself is probably the best quality one.”
Contegiacomo said the fact that the bottles were all still sealed and the whiskey at relatively the same level in each bottle gives him hope the liquor inside is still good.
“The ocean temperatures usually don’t get anywhere near 70 degrees, even at the bottom of the waters in New Jersey,” Contegiacomo said.
At left, Contegiacomo is shown on the beach in New Jersey with his dog, Koda, and his wife, Brooke; at right, one of the bottles he found, cleaned up and gleaming now — but still unopened. (Austin Contegiacomo)
Exactly how the bottles of whiskey ended up in the water remains a mystery.
“Apparently [bootleggers] used to bring it down to about the Jersey Shore – and then small boats would take off from the Jersey Shore and they would pick the liquor up. I guess the boardwalk was pretty much a hot spot for rum running and stuff during Prohibition.”
That’s why Contegiacomo said he’s not interested in drinking it or cashing in on his find.
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“If any of us intend to try it, I don’t think it’d be me that opens it,” Contegiacomo said.
“Opening it and then seeing it empty or even half-empty kind of detracts from it. Even if it’s a great whiskey or something, I don’t think I’d appreciate the whiskey itself nearly as much as I appreciate the story and how it got here.”
Sydney Borchers of Fox News Digital contributed reporting.
Gretchen Eichenberg is a contributing reporter for Fox News Digital.
