An American Lion

I think it’s spelled “Mackinlay’s”

Good God, man—we’re talking about whiskey here! And science! To hell with international treaties and Poindexters looking over our shoulders. Dig that whiskey out of the ground and see if it’s any good:

A beverage company has asked a team to drill through Antarctica’s ice for a lost cache of some vintage Scotch whiskey that has been on the rocks since a century ago.

The drillers will be trying to reach two crates of McKinlay and Co. whiskey that were shipped to the Antarctic by British polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton as part of his abandoned 1909 expedition.

Whyte & Mackay, the drinks group that now owns McKinlay and Co., has asked for a sample of the 100-year-old scotch for a series of tests that could decide whether to relaunch the now-defunct Scotch.

Workers from New Zealand’s Antarctic Heritage Trust will use special drills to reach the crates, frozen in Antarctic ice under the Nimrod Expedition hut near Cape Royds.

Al Fastier, who will lead the expedition in January, said restoration workers found the crates of whiskey under the hut’s floorboards in 2006. At the time, the crates and bottles were too deeply embedded in ice to be dislodged.

The New Zealanders have agreed to try to retrieve some bottles, although the rest must stay under conservation guidelines agreed by 12 Antarctic Treaty nations.

Fastier said he did not want to sample the contents.

“It’s better to imagine it than to taste it,” he said. “That way it keeps its mystery.”

Richard Paterson, Whyte & Mackay’s master blender, said the Shackleton expedition’s whiskey could still be drinkable and taste exactly as it did 100 years ago.

Now, President Norman Rogers would easily give orders to secretly break the treaty. I would make certain that the orders were delivered verbally. No paper trail, you see. Plus, I have heavily researched this subject, and this is what I have found:

In 1907, Sir Earnest Schackleton, explorer, asked the Company to supply the official Scotch whisky for his Antarctic expedition to the South Pole. This momentous trip began aboard the S.S. ENDURANCE. Empty bottles of The Original Mackinlay were discovered by a later expedition, still standing on Schackleton’s base-camp desk.

Okay, so that wasn’t much, but it does speak to the necessity of knowing whether or not that Scotch still tastes good. Science has already told us that if you leave beer in the ground, it will taste bad. Scotch? Scotch is better with age. Scotch does not go bad if the bottle stays sealed. If this old scotch tastes good, yes, definitely come out with more of it. If not, so be it. I’m thirsty just thinking about the possibilities. Here’s what I do when I’m confronted with something I need unfrozen: I use a hairdryer on it. I usually wreck the hair dryer, because I get bored and leave it on, but still.