Shackleton's 101-Year-Old Scotch
The great British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton was only 100 miles (160 km) from the South Pole in 1909 when, low on supplies, he was forced to turn back. Though his attempt to reach the South Pole had failed, he must have taken some solace from the knowledge that he was returning to at least five crates of Scotch whisky and brandy buried underneath the floorboards of his Antarctic base camp. But when he had to quickly sail out before winter ice could trap his ship, he abandoned his liquor cache. Recovered earlier this year, one crate of Shackleton's Scotch whisky is now thawing in a New Zealand museum. Whyte & Mackay, the drinks group that owns the original distiller of the whisky, is hoping to analyze the old spirit and possibly recreate its long-lost recipe. According to a museum blog dedicated to the thawing whisky, a connoisseur who caught a whiff of the Scotch described the bouquet as a "nice floral, not a smoky smell, and a bit woody."