The cornerstone of the Voortrekker Monument was laid on December 16 1938 and a coelacanth was caught off East London. The rest of the world was a mess: Europe was spiraling down to war, Japan overran Canton and Adolf Hitler was Time magazine’s Man of the Year. But in Scotland, at the Mortlach distillery in Dufftown on Speyside, distiller George Urquhart, put 250 litres of new made whisky into a Spanish Sherry Cask (the Spanish Civil War was finally winding down and on May 5 the Vatican recognized Franco’s fascist government). A commitment to an uncertain future that was to lay undisturbed for 70 years.

Seventy two years later, Ray Edwards, liquor executive for Spar, is auctioning 200ml of this whisky in a teardrop decanter in aid of a local foetal alcohol charity. Visitors to Whisky Live, which kicks off at the Cape Town Convention Centre tomorrow, will be able to bid on this taste of the past using the latest technology: two iPad computers.

The angels got away with most of it – around 70 litres were all that remained of the original 250 – and I got to taste it as a bottle flown in sprang a fortuitous leak and the heady aroma of fiery raisins and toffee was wafting around the lobby of the Cape Sun this afternoon. It’s the oldest whisky ever bottled for although Makro will sell you a bottle of 1937 Macallan for R90 000, the spirit was bottled some years ago and once in bottle, all development stops. But Makro’s special does give a useful price calibration of R24 000 for 200ml of 30’s spirit. To which must be added the unique decanter straight out of Harry Potter and the fact that proceeds go to charity.