$102,000 Whiskey: Over 100K Worth of Pre-Prohibition Whiskey Consumed by Pennsylvania Man [VIDEO]

A Pennsylvania man faces criminal charges for allegedly consuming approximately $102,000 worth of vintage whiskey.

A mansion in Westmoreland County had a hidden treasure in its basement staircase, nearly 100 bottles of West Overton Distilling Company's pure rye whiskey.

The homeowner Patricia Hill speculated J.P Brennan to have hidden the liquor during Prohibition. Hill purchased the mansion from Brennan's daughter through an auction in 1986. Hill worked to convert the mansion into a bed and breakfast.

"The whiskey was buried right back here under these stairs. They were doing renovations down here for the plumbing and electrical and they had to rip out underneath the stairs. Whenever they did, they discovered 9 cases of the old farm, pure rye whiskey," said South Broadway Manor's chef and innkeeper, Rick Bruckner. "The story with this isn't just, 'Hey, we have some really old whiskey.' It's, 'Hey, we have some really old, historical whiskey.'"

Hill rented out the basement apartment to John Saunders, 62. He is now charged by Scottdale police with consuming about 52 bottles of historic 1912 whiskey.

Chief Barry Pritts wrote in a criminal complaint, Saunders denied of drinking the whiskey or removing labels from the bottles. He told the police he moved the cases to clean them sever times however never opened any of the bottles.

"Saunders said that the whiskey probably evaporated and being that old, it was probably no good," Pritts wrote.

After a search warrant was issued for Saunders' DNA sample, "The DNA profile obtained from John William Saunders matched the DNA profile obtained from the mouth of three of the (empty) whiskey bottles," Pritts said.

Saunders is scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing on Wednesday before Judge Church Moore in Scottdale.