Explorers hope to find Antarctic whiskey stash
Updated
Early next year a team of New Zealand explorers will set off on one of the more unusual Antarctic expeditions - aiming to find some whisky which has been on ice for exactly one hundred years.
Presenter: Kerri Ritchie, New Zealand Correspondent
Speaker: Al Fastier, expedition leader; Richard Paterson, master blender of Whyte and Mackay
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KERRI RITCHIE: In 1909 things went wrong for Ernest Shackleton. On a treacherous mission to the South Pole, the British explorer and his team had to be rescued when the weather turned bad and they ran out of food. Everything had to be left behind, including the 25 crates of rare whisky which had been gifted to them. Now, a century later, Al Fastier is leading an expedition to recover those crates.
AL FASTIER: We will be spending some time at Shackleton's Hut and the purpose of going there is to excavate the whisky from under the hut. We found it in 2006 and due to weather conditions and the excavation has been delayed until this year. So we are very excited to get in and do the work this season.
KERRI RITCHIE: Al Fastier and his team plan to chip away at the ice around the shack with drills. He says Ernest Shackleton was an impressive man who obviously appreciated a fine drop.
AL FASTIER: His main mission was to go to the South Pole and he got within 97 nautical miles of the Pole but due to the lack of food he had to turn the expedition back. It was a very brave decision especially being so close to the Pole but he brought all his men back safety so it was a great outcome.
KERRI RITCHIE: Should he perhaps should he have taken more food and less whisky?
AL FASTIER: (laughs) That is a good question. They had whiskey at the hut and alcohol for celebrations like Christmas, Christmas and birthdays and the like but they actually had minimal sled and supplies and so they wouldn't have had any alcohol on the journey to the pole.
KERRI RITCHIE: You can no longer buy the brand of whisky which was given to Shackleton for his expedition - McKinlay and Co. The Glasgow distillers which made it, Whyte and Mackay, had asked the explorers to bring back a sample of the whisky so it can carry out some experiments. The company's master blender Richard Paterson believes if the corks have stayed in place and the whisky has been airtight, the taste might not have changed and the distillers might be able to recreate it.
Mr Patterson was fast asleep and couldn't do an interview but this is how he responded recently when trying a 30-year-old whisky - imagine what he'll be like if he gets his hands on a 100-year-old drop.
RICHARD PATTERSON: Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, woah, so so special. Thirty years old, think of it. Thirty not 10, 20 but 30 to 35 years old. This is a blended whiskey. This is almost like people say, it is like a single malt, it is so smooth and so elegant, yes, but with the grains at 30 years old has brought it into its own, its own proximinity (phonetic) of sheer, unadulterated pleasure.
KERRI RITCHIE: But Al Fastier won't be cracking open a bottle. (To Al Fastier) Do you get to taste it?
AL FASTIER: No, we don't and I suppose that is one of the exciting things is the mystique of trying to understand what it would taste like but never given the opportunity and I think it is quite exciting in some ways of, yeah, being so closely involved with the excavations but not being able to taste it so it is quite tantalising.
KERRI RITCHIE: Did Shackleton go on to give it another go or was this his one and only attempt?
AL FASTIER: He did have another expedition and his plan was to cross the Antarctic and start from the other side. He actually had the Ross Sea party go back down to the Ross Sea to lay food depots for him but his ship sunk and he never got the opportunity to do the crossing and at the same time, after his ship sunk, he managed to save all his men once again and bring them back safely.
KERRI RITCHIE: You would think on that first attempt when things didn't go well and he had to turn around that the whiskey would be the first thing that people would dip into and there wouldn't be any left?
AL FASTIER: You would. It is a very interesting part of the mystery and one we will probably never know.
KERRI RITCHIE: After the crates are removed from under the hut, conservators will take a look and work out the best way to preserve them. It's likely they will stay at the hut exactly where Ernest Shackleton regretfully left them. The explorers haven't decided yet if they'll bring home a little sample, to send to their whiskey loving friends in Scotland.
