Shackleton's Antarctic whisky found

Photo: PDVos In 1909, British explorer Ernest Shackleton aborted an attempt to reach the south pole. He abandoned two cases of scotch at base camp. A century on, we've found it.

Whyte & Mackay, the drinks group that now owns McKinlay and Co., has asked for a sample of the 100-year-old scotch for a series of tests that could decide whether to relaunch the now-defunct Scotch. Workers from New Zealand's Antarctic Heritage Trust will use special drills to reach the crates, frozen in Antarctic ice under the Nimrod Expedition hut near Cape Royds.

Thought discovered in 2006, conservation guidelines impose strict rules on how the ice-embedded bottles may be recovered. Whyte & Mackay's master blender says it will taste extactly as it did 100 years ago. Company Wants To Drill For Whiskey Lost In Antarctic [CBS]

• [mo-seph]

  Unfortunately, whisky stops maturing once it’s bottled, unlike wine. Whisky aging is all about the interaction between the spirit and the wood.

• [apoxia]

  Oh no, your link to the news article at the bottom says “Arctic” instead of Antarctic!!

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Fixed.

  • [dragonfrog]

    The bottles were buried very deep, apoxia. Veeeery deep.

  • [jackie31337]

    It’s not Boing Boing’s goof. The article itself is titled “Company Wants To Drill For Whiskey Lost In Arctic”, despite the fact that the very first sentence starts out “A beverage company has asked a team to drill through Antarctica’s ice….”

    • [apoxia]

      Us in the Southern Hemisphere are pretty used to be marginalised by those in the Northern Hemisphere.

  • [Ted8305]

    Well they could reach it eventually starting drilling from the Arctic…. it would just take a really really really long hole.

• [Anonymous]

  I would like to drink this whiskey.

• [ROSSINDETROIT]

  My step brother is in Antarctica for 6 months repairing heating boilers*. When he gets back I’ll ask him if word of this reached him.

  * Yes, the jobs situation in MI – highest unemployment in the country – really is so bad that he took a job in Antarctica.

• [nixiebunny]

  Drilling in the Antarctic to get it out will make this the most expensive whiskey around. Imagine what it will fetch on eBay!

• [Anonymous]

  Simply put, that is awesome.

• [RitchG]

  That is awesome. I wonder what the conversation following the …discovery, consisted of.

• [Anonymous]

  First they want to drill for oil in ANWR, now they want to drill for whiskey in Antarctica! Sheesh, what’s next?!?!

• [IWood]

  This made me think of William Sokolin’s bottle of Chateau Margaux, allegedly from Thomas Jefferson’s cellar.* He broke it while showing it off (Look at my Ridiculously Expensive Thing, you peons!), and, tasting a remnant of it, pronounced it “flinty and unsatisfying.”

  Whiskey keeps better than wine…as long as the corks are intact. But, from the article:

  [Expedition leader] Fastier said he did not want to sample the contents.

  “It’s better to imagine it than to taste it,” he said. “That way it keeps its mystery.”

  I think there might be something wrong with that man.
  _____________________

  *It was a fake, 18th-century but not from Jefferson’s cellar…he still collected $200K from the insurance company.

• [Jerril]

  Or is that “fortunately”? The final result of maturation is vinegar, after all.

• [metalck]

  Jackie31337….. I love that idea. And I bet it is some ohhhh buy this new product crap.

  And if it is not any co reading this blog is totally gonna steal this idea. lol

  :P

• [Anonymous]

  Anyone wanting to keep up with this story should follow the master blender mentioned in it via Twitter at @the_nose or http://www.themasterblender.com.

• [Teller]

  Would’ve helped Shackleton’s hoosh through the greybeards.

• [philarama]

  If it’s from Scotland, it’s whisky. If it’s from Ireland or the US it’s whiskey.

• [Anonymous]

  Shackleton was Irish – born in Athy, Co. Kildare

• [Anonymous]

  and so near to Christmas too, how convenient.

• [smonkey]

  FAKE!!!!

  well, kinda.

  I read this a few weeks ago and thought it sounded too good to be true, and it is..kind of.

  The whisky has been found.

  It was frozen under the shack they stayed in.

  The cases were found while removing ice from under the expedition’s “shack”.

  But there is no “drilling for whiskey” No high tech adventure. The cases are already removed.

  Here’s an earlier version of the article without the “high-tech drill” bullshit added by some crap reporter along the line.

  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-439841/Preserved-ice-100-years-whisky-Shackleton-used-cold.html

• [Moriarty]

  NPR knows the difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic, and how to spell whisky:

  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120661991

• [Anonymous]

  In the U.S., we drink (and write about) whiskey with an E regardless of origin. Canadian whiskey, Scotch whiskey, Irish whiskey. Same with cheese: we don’t call it fromage just because it cam from France, it’s still called cheese here. We drink and write about wine and not vin or vino even though it goes by those different (but similar) names in other countries where it is produced.

• [Lady Katey]

  Wasn’t there some kind of competition going on for a while in regards to finding this stuff?

• [Anonymous]

  I for one welcome our new Whiskey overlords.

• [DavindeK]

  In 1909, the most common spelling of whiskey in Scotland was with an ‘e’. The first definition of Scotch Whiskey, published in 1909 by the Royal Commission on Whiskey and Other Potable Spirits also used the ‘e’ spelling. Neither spelling is incorrect in any country. Here is a link to an article I published a few years ago on the nonsense of the whisky spelling gestapo.
  http://www.maltmaniacs.org/malt-109.html#0810
  Davin

• [nanuq]

  Wouldn’t you need a seance to raise spirits?

• [franko]

  well, *that* didn’t take very long. didn’t they just start looking for it recently?

• [John Napsterista]

  Ladey Katey, I believe this is the contest to which you refer:

  http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/175/in-those-old-canadian-club-ads-did-anyone-find-the-hidden-cases-of-whiskey

  http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/29/hidden-booze-treasur.html#comments

• [Anonymous]

  But have they found the egg of mantumbi?!?

• [dculberson]

  They’ll find a straw leading from the bottles and Daniel Day Lewis saying “I drink your Whisky! I drink it up!”

• [Anonymous]

  The Whiskey of Mantumbi can be found… (cue Newman ringtone).