This article was originally published in The News-Enterprise on May 24, 2018.
By: Ben Sheroan
Intent on owning a keepsake connected with the 16th president and her family heritage, Jo-Ann Bland Myers came to an auction at Boundary Oak Distillery with a purpose.
“I came to buy,” she said.
During the auction Wednesday for the first bottle of Lincoln wheated whiskey, her interest quickly became obvious.
As fellow bidders huddled to discuss strategy during the pleadings from Hodges Auction Co. auctioneer Mark Haynes, Myers showed no indecision. With each competitive bid, she immediately extended her arm into the air to top it.
In fact, she didn’t stop after her winning bid of $25,000.
To ensure the bottle set a record as the most expensive liquor ever sold in America, the final bidders agreed to reopen the sale. They pushed the price to $25,550 – $50 above the winning bid recorded in 2014 for the right to purchase Bottle 1 from Batch 1 of Boundary Oak’s first bourbon.
After the sale, Myers explained her connection to Abraham Lincoln to the audience of about 50 on hand for the live bidding in Radcliff.
She can trace her family line to Captain Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Bathsheba, who were grandparents of the president born in 1809 in a log cabin near Hodgenville.
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