A bottle of whisky recovered from the wreck of a cargo ship that inspired the film Whisky Galore sold at auction yesterday for £2200 to a teenager fascinated by its remarkable story.

A bottle of whisky recovered from the wreck of a cargo ship that inspired the film Whisky Galore sold at auction yesterday for £2200 to a teenager fascinated by its remarkable story.

The bottle of Ballantine Scotch whisky was expected to fetch somewhere in the region of £1500.

It was one of around 240,000 bottles of whisky that sank with the SS Politician after it ran aground off Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides in 1941.

For weeks the Scottish islanders celebrated on the spirits they had looted from the wreck, hiding the bottles before government officials could find them.

The sinking of the SS Politician inspired the novel Whisky Galore and later the 1949 Ealing comedy film of the same name, helping ensure the tale entered into legend.

The bottle of whisky sold to the family of 18-year-old gap-year student Tam Burt, from Dollar, Clackmannanshire.

Speaking from Paris, Tam said he enjoyed reading the novel Whisky Galore, written by Compton Mackenzie in 1947, and later studied it for his Advanced Higher dissertation.

He said: "I read the book as a child and I really enjoyed it. Later I won a scholarship and on that I investigated the original story by travelling to Eriskay and the AM Politician pub named after the vessel.

"When I saw the bottle was up for auction I decided to go for it. In my opinion the bottle was grossly undervalued. But you won't find it being drunk. I like to drink whisky but this one will stay untouched."

The whisky should still be drinkable because its seal remains intact.

Francesca Collin, spokeswoman for Gorringes Auctioneers in East Sussex, said: "It appears to have caught the imagination of everyone who heard the story."