Prohibition whisky found while renovating the "Bootlegger Bungalow"

Nick Drummond and Patrick Bakker bought an old house in the small town of Ames, New York, and set out to repair and renovate it. The house had once been owned by "Count" Adolf Humpfner, who was rumored to have been a bootlegger, but he died in 1932, so those stories may have been just a legend. Two families lived in the home since then, for decades each. So it was quite a surprise when Drummond and Bakker pulled some wall panels out and found whisky bottles. A lot of them.

"I was in the process of removing this rotted wood skirting that went around the mudroom sort of where the foundation would be if it was a truly finished structure, and as I'm peeling back the boards on one of the sides, all of the sudden all this hay falls out and I was very confused," Drummond said. "And at first, I was like 'oh this must be insulation' – of course all this is taking place within a few seconds in my head — and then I look and I'm like 'well wait a second, what's that glass thing? And then I pull it up and I'm looking at this old liquor bottle. And then I'm looking at the other package and there's these other little tops poking out of the hay. And then I look back at the wall and there's like the edge of this other package tied up with string and I'm like, 'Holy crap, this is like a stash of booze.'"

Brown paper packages tied up with string filled with an alcohol lover's favorite thing.

"I was totally excited and we ended up finding the rest of the mudroom was lined with these packages," Drummond said.

"At the end of the day we were just sitting, and we were like, 'We really like the house so much more now,'" Bakker said.

So far, they've found 72 bottles, some empty, but most containing Prohibition-era Gaelic whisky under the name Old Smuggler. The bonanza led them to find out more about Adolf Humpfner, who led quite a colorful life, although much of it is still shrouded in mystery. The house has since been dubbed the Bootlegger Bungalow. Read about Humpfner, the house, and the whisky at the Denver Channel. Find out more at Drummond's Instagram page.

[via Laughing Squid]