When a backhoe rolled a corked bottle out of the dirt at Alta this summer, no one immediately grasped what they were holding.
It wasn’t empty. It wasn’t shattered. It was full.
“The bottle that was discovered up at Alta is the only bottle of alcohol ever discovered in an archaeological excavation in the state of Utah that was still full,” said Ian Wright, Utah’s Public Archaeologist.
The excavation had begun as construction oversight during installation of water reservoirs at Alta Ski Area. The trench cut through foundations of historic mining-era buildings. Artifacts were expected. A sealed, liquid-filled bottle was not.
It came up unexpectedly and rolled downhill from the excavation site. When archaeologists picked it up, they could smell alcohol faintly through the damaged cork. It had likely sat underground since the 1870s or 1890s, the height of Alta’s silver mining boom.
From that moment, the project shifted.
There was opportunity. There was risk. And there was very little room for improvisation.
Wright and his team knew the bottle had to be handled properly, both scientifically and practically. They did not want it contaminated. They also did not want it to disappear. “One of the reasons we got ahold of it so quickly is we didn’t want it to get snuck off and drank,” Wright admitted.
Their first call was to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for conservation advice. Liability concerns limited what guidance they could provide. So the team turned to a local partner: High West Distillery.
“We called our buddies up at High West,” Wright said. “They were stoked.”
At the distillery, head distiller Isaac Winter and his team approached the bottle with laboratory precision. Before removing the cork, they inserted a sterile needle to extract a small sample without contaminating the contents. Specialized tools designed for fragile cork removal were then used to open the bottle properly.
The first drops were poured into a shot glass.
Winter smelled it, evaluating it as a distiller would. Then he tasted it.
“It didn’t smell like gasoline or tobacco spit, so yeah, I’m gonna drink it,” Wright recalled Winter saying.
The reaction surprised those in the room. But Winter’s expertise mattered. Wright emphasized that if anyone was going to taste it, it should be someone trained to recognize flavor profiles and degradation.
According to Wright, Winter said it “wasn’t bad.” It did not taste rancid. It was room temperature, certainly not ideal, but intact.
Then something else became evident. Later, when some spilled liquid was wiped from a surface, it dried sticky.
“That tells us it has some type of a sugar element in there,” Wright explained. That observation suggests it may not be hard spirits like whiskey, but possibly sherry, ale, or some kind of beer.
The bottle has since been divided into sterile sample vials and sent to laboratories capable of identifying chemical signatures. High West has coordinated testing through a cannabis laboratory that specializes in analyzing complex chemical profiles for regulatory verification. Wright also mentioned a laboratory in France that verifies regional authenticity in wine and tequila, capable of determining origin through molecular analysis.
The goal is simple: determine exactly what this was.
But there is a second, more ambitious possibility.
High West believes there may be a chance to “plate” the contents — to attempt to regrow dormant yeast from the sample. If viable yeast can be recovered, it may be possible to recreate the beverage itself.
“They might be able to resurrect the actual contents of that bottle,” Wright said, describing the possibility of producing a modern version of what Alta’s miners were drinking in the late nineteenth century.
If successful, it would not just identify history. It would taste like it.
The bottle is not the only significant discovery.
More than 1,200 artifacts were cataloged from the excavation. Wright noted that Alta’s newspaper accounts often exaggerated the town’s population — sometimes claiming 8,000 residents — but archaeology suggests a more realistic number closer to 1,500 at its peak. Mining boosters promoted growth aggressively. The material record offers balance.
The artifacts themselves reflect global trade. Wright said items recovered came from China, Japan, Germany, England, the Bahamas, and Trinidad. The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 transformed Alta almost immediately, allowing machinery, goods, and people to arrive in volume. The trench revealed industrial mining equipment alongside ornate ceramics.
Alta was not merely rough. It was cosmopolitan.
One especially personal artifact emerged from the dirt: a leather hat.
The hat had been crushed flat but survived. It was taken to Ann Lauer, curator at the Natural History Museum of Utah, for conservation.
“Leather has a memory,” Wright said, summarizing her explanation. As the dirt was carefully removed, the material began slowly returning toward its original form.
The hat appears similar to a classic miner’s style with a brim intentionally pushed upward. Wright explained that miners often lifted the brim so it wouldn’t obstruct vision underground. The hat also bears holes consistent with the use of a “sticking Tommy,” an iron candle holder pinned through the brim to provide light inside mine tunnels.
The artifact carries both form and function. It is not decorative. It tells you how someone worked.
Wright described archaeology as a “destructive science.” Excavation permanently alters a site. Once soil layers are removed, they cannot be replaced. That is why documentation, partnerships, and public benefit are critical.
The Alta excavation will continue.
In June, a more formal dig is planned with three crews: archaeology field school students, Utah cultural site stewards, and members of the public. Portions of the trench intersected multiple historic building foundations, and archaeologists intend to return and excavate scientifically rather than merely respond to construction disturbance.
Wright emphasized that artifacts will not simply disappear into museum storage. Discussions are underway with Alta Ski Area and local institutions to display items publicly.
For Wright, the power of the Alta project lies in connection. He recently found himself skiing over the same ground where the bottle was discovered.
“My wife was with me,” he said, “and she goes, ‘Now where did you find the bottle?’ And we were on the tow rope. And I’m like, literally right here, right under our feet.”
