"Barkeep, Give Me a Shackelton's OTR Stat"!

Since we live in a country chock full o' metro sexuals and other wussified males, many of whom would stay jobless if they couldn't find a job in their "field of expertise", imagine what kind of man it took to answer the following 1907 ad...

“Wanted. Men for hazardous journey. Low wages. Bitter cold. Long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in the event of success.”

Men of a different time, no doubt about it. With the conditions (freezing temps, stiff winds, cobbled roads) of the early classics almost upon us, imagine that ad running in some small Belgian paper. If you're not familiar with the tale of Shackleton and "The Endurance", you should be!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton

Ernest Shackleton would have made one hell of a patron!

Of all the discoveries a modern day adventurer could make, this has to be amongst the coolest (literally)!

Shackleton's whisky stash recovered

(UKPA) – 6 hours ago

A stash of whisky which lay buried under Antarctic ice for more than 100 years has been recovered by a team restoring explorer Ernest Shackleton's hut.

The spirit, five crates in total, was made by McKinlay and Co, and drinks group Whyte & Mackay has asked for a sample to carry out tests with a view to re-launching the brand.

New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust team leader Al Fastier said the team thought there were two whisky and brandy crates and were amazed to find five.

Mr Fastier said restoration workers found the crates under the hut's floorboards in 2006, but they were too deeply embedded in ice to be dislodged.

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

Ice has cracked some of the crates and formed inside them. Mr Fastier said that would make extracting the contents delicate, but the trust would decide how to do so in the coming weeks.

Richard Paterson, master blender at Whyte & Mackay, whose company supplied the Mackinlay's whisky for Shackleton, described the find as "a gift from the heavens for whisky lovers".

He added: "If the contents can be confirmed, safely extracted and analysed, the original blend may be able to be replicated. Given the original recipe no longer exists, this may open a door into history."

Shackleton's expedition ran short of supplies on its long ski trek to the South Pole from the northern Antarctic coast in 1907/09 and turned back about 100 miles short of its goal.

The expedition sailed away in 1909 as winter ice formed, leaving behind supplies, including the whisky and brandy.

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