New Zealanders Drilling for Whiskey in Antarctica

By John Farrier in Everything Else on Nov 17, 2009 at 1:46 pm

A group of explorers from New Zealand are traveling to a campsite of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1909 Antarctic expedition in the hopes of finding whiskey left behind beneath the floorboards of a shelter:

Among the supplies British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton abandoned on his unsuccessful 1909 expedition to the pole were two crates of the now extinct rare old brand of McKinlay and Co whisky.

Now Whyte & Mackay, the drinks giant that owns McKinlay and Co, has asked for a sample of the drink for a series of experiments, the Telegraph newspaper reported in London.

The New Zealanders will use special drills to free the trapped crates and rescue a bottle from the crates, discarded near the Cape Royds hut used by the Nimrod expedition, or at least draw off a sample using a syringe.

The crates were discovered in January 2006, but the bottle couldn’t be removed as they were too deeply embedded.

Link via Discover | Image: NASA


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  1. Gauldar
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    Yeah, that sounds like something those booze crazy kiwis would do.

  2. pwscott
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 3:51 pm

    lol Now a true treasure hunt. Drink or sell?

  3. Mitch
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 1:28 am

    Good whiskey should be drunk, not left entombed in the ice.

  4. fish tick
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 12:57 pm

    I’d bet my life savings on that photo being a Canadian Coast Guard ship.

  5. John Farrier
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 2:01 pm

    You’d probably be right, fish tick. I chose it not because it directly related to the story, but because the scenery related to the story.

    With copyright restrictions, that was the best that I could do.


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