South Pole explorers to drill for Sir Ernest Shackleton's whiskey

On 16/11/2009
In Famous Wrecks
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Sir Ernest Shackleton

By Simon Johnson -Telegraph

Explorers are planning to recover a rare batch of whiskey lost during explorer's ill-fated voyage to the South Pole a century ago.

Two crates of the now extinct “Rare Old” brand of McKinlay and Co whiskey have been buried in the Antarctic ice since Shackleton was forced to abandon his polar mission in 1909.

But Whyte & Mackay, the whiskey giant that owns McKinlay and Co, has asked a team of New Zealand explorers heading out on a January expedition to return a sample of the drink for a series of experiments.

The team intends to utilise special drills to free the trapped crates and rescue a bottle from the wreckage, which is believed to have been discarded 97 miles from the pole.

If they cannot retrieve a full bottle, they are hoping to use a syringe to extract some of the contents.

The sample will then be brought home to Richard Paterson, Whyte & Mackay's master blender, who intends to replicate the famous old whiskey.