Selters' 200-year-old water has taken on a percentage?

At the end of June we described the findThe shipwreck of the F53.31 shipwreck, popularly known as the Glazik, was the subject of a research project carried out by archaeologists from the National Maritime Museum in Gdańsk. The team of researchers from the National Maritime Museum, led by Tomasz Bednarz, excavated from the waters of the Gdansk Bay an original stoneware bottle of the famous German mineral water – Selters.

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The find set off a real media avalanche. As the NMM states on its website, the information about the excavation of the corked bottle from the beginning of the 19th century was reported by such titles as Rzeczpospolita, Frankfurter Allemaigne Zeitung, Daily Telegraph, Frankfurter Neue Presse, Mittlebayerische.de, Spigel.de. Additionally, the Discovery channel, the editors of Teleexpress, and a prestigious thematic portal – archaeology.org – were interested in the topic.

In addition, the mayor of the Hessian town of Niederselters, who is also the representative of the Selters Water Museum, sent congratulations to the Polish archaeologists and a gift in the form of the latest book about this exclusive water.

During all this media fuss, the liquid in the stoneware bottle was sent for analysis to the J.S. Hamilton chemical laboratory in Gdynia. The purpose of the tests was to identify the liquid and confirm whether it was the original Selters corked water or whether the bottle had been filled and re-corked.

As a result of laboratory tests it was possible to determine that in a stoneware bottle from the bottom of the Gulf of Gdansk, there is… alcohol! Specifically, a 14% alcohol distillate, most likely diluted with water. Interestingly, its chemical composition coincides with that known from Selters soda water from the epoch. We will know the complete research and its results in September, when they will be announced at a press conference.

The wreck, from which water was extracted, is located at a depth of 12m, about 4km from the shore in Gdynia-Orłowo. Its remains were discovered a year ago, during a routine examination of the bottom by employees of the Maritime Office in Gdynia.

The research on the wreck F 53.31 and the artefacts from it is being carried out as part of the project “Inventory of wrecks F53.14 and F53.31 from the Gulf of Gdańsk”, which received funding under the Programme of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.

Source: nmm.pl