Antarctic expeditions revisited through reproduced whisky

BY SUSAN R. EATON, FOR POSTMEDIA NEWS OCTOBER 23, 2011

CALGARY — Sir Ernest Shackleton probably hadn’t planned on leaving three crates of Scotch whisky in Antarctica, and almost certainly never imagined Calgarians drinking it, one hundred years later.

But thanks to the 2007 discovery of the 19th century liquor under the floor boards of Shackleton’s abandoned Antarctic hut, whisky aficionados in Calgary recently raised a toast to the polar explorer.

They weren’t tasting the original golden malt, however, but a precise recreation — Mackinlay’s Rare Old Highland Malt Whisky — as part of a whisky tasting at Calgary’s Kensington Wine Market.

Frozen in time — in minus 30 degrees Celsius temperatures — since Shackleton’s British Antarctic (Nimrod) Expedition of 1907-1909, the whisky’s 47.3 per cent alcohol content ensured that it didn’t freeze.

Unearthed a century later by the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, the bottles were in pristine condition, making the recreation of the malt possible.
Shackleton’s whisky represents a time capsule, a window into the smoky or peaty flavour of a century before. Back then, distillers burned peat to dry the barley. Coal gradually replaced peat, and, today, hot air is used to dry the barley, producing a cleaner tasting whisky.

To recreate the lost formula from the defunct Glen Mhor Distillery, Glasgow-based Whyte and Mackay Limited, owners of the Mackinlay brand, used modern sensory, radio carbon and chemical forensic science worthy of a CSI television episode.

Combining legacy whisky produced by the distillery — it closed during the early 1980s — with the new malt, the brewers assured the authenticity of the Mackinlay’s Rare Old Highland Malt Whisky.

Only 50,000 bottles were produced in the spring of 2011, making it a hot commodity for whisky collectors and Shackleton history buffs.

According to Andrew Ferguson, Kensington Wine Market’s co-manager and “Scotch Guy,” his store received all of Alberta’s allocation of Mackinlay’s Rare Old Highland Malt Whisky. Ferguson secured 300 bottles of this light honey-coloured nectar — there are still bottles available for purchase for $195.

Whyte and Mackay is donating $8 from every bottle, to the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust to support its ongoing restoration efforts in Antarctica.

Reviewed by Malt Advocate Magazine, Mackinlay’s Rare Old Highland Malt Whisky scored a respectable 92 points. “Anything in the 90s is considered a very good score,” explained Ferguson.

“I had a misconception of what whisky from that era would have tasted like,” said Ferguson. “I was surprised by how creamy, rich and fruity it was. And, there’s a smoky element in the whisky that you don’t get in today’s whiskies from the highlands.”

The recreation began in 2010, when the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust removed a case of Shackleton’s whisky from the Antarctic permafrost, transporting it to the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch for delicate thawing.

Once the whisky was identified as the historic Mackinlay brand, Whyte and Mackay swung into action. Dr. Vijay Mallya, Whyte and Mackay’s chairman, sent his corporate jet to Christchurch to pick up three bottles of Shackleton’s original malt, whisking the precious cargo back to Scotland — in a specially built case handcuffed to Richard Paterson, Whyte and MacKay’s master blender.

“These bottles are priceless artifacts, and we had to keep them under tight security,” explained David Robertson, Whyte and Mackay’s director of rare whiskies.
One of the privileged few to sample the 100-year-old Scotch whisky, Robertson described it as “absolutely incredible.”

“I was allowed to ‘nose’ it, and got one tiny drop to taste,” he said. “Without a shadow of a doubt, tasting the whisky from the permafrost has been one of the highlights of my 30-year career.”

“Science can only tell us so much,” said Robertson of the forensic recreation process. “But what we really needed was Richard Paterson’s ‘nose’ to get us as close to the original Scotch whisky as possible.” Paterson’s olfactory asset, his “nose,” is insured for $2.4-million Cdn.

At the Calgary tasting, whisky aficionados sampled Shackleton’s malt in commemorative glasses etched with the forlorn image of Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, trapped in ice during his second voyage to the Antarctic, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917.

The Endurance was crushed and sank, precipitating the greatest survival story of the 20th century. Not a man was lost during the two-year rescue operation, cementing Shackleton’s reputation as a great leader.

“There’s a sense of history in the art of making a fine Scotch whisky,” said Dave Yadav, a Shackleton history buff and self-professed whisky neophyte. “And, I can’t think of another whisky that has this history.”

Enthusiastic attendees at the tasting brought their maps, books and Shackleton memorabilia, including a riveting audio tape of a lecture that Shackleton delivered on the Nimrod Expedition where he narrowly escaped death, falling 160 kilometres short of reaching his objective, the South Pole.

Yadav likened creating a fine whisky to mounting an expedition: “There’s so much preparation and so many moving parts to arrive at the destination.”

“The font used on the label was like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” he added. “The whisky represented a time gone by that we were able to enjoy.”

Yadav was right — the fonts used in the customized labels for Shackleton’s British Antarctic Expedition don’t exist today. Whyte and Mackay commissioned a specialist who painstakingly recreated the labels, drawing them by hand. The distiller’s attention to historical detail extended to the bottle, the rustic wooden crates, the paper wrap and packing materials.

“Obviously, the most challenging thing was to recreate the liquid,” explained Robertson. “But, we also wanted to recreate the glass in the bottles.”

“Each bottle is unique,” he added, describing how the distiller relaxed quality control in its factory, introducing bubbles characteristic of turn-of-the-century bottles.

Calgary Herald
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