Having graced these very pages, Richard Paterson, master blender at Whyte and Mackay, will be a familiar name. Known in the world as The Nose – self explanatory really, but an olfactory talent so developed as to have once warranted insuring for £1.5 million – he is responsible, together with team of scientists, for what has become the whisky story to beat all whisky stories: the Mackinlay Shackleton Replica – 47.3%, blended malt.
Richard Paterson, master blender at Whyte and Mackay
Mackinlay? Shackleton? Yes. Check this. Released the backend of last year, with an early taster curated, in October, by whisky writers Dave Broom and Martine Nouet, and then, at a typically ribald masterclass, by Paterson himself, the Shackleton Replica is the exact (almost) copy of a whisky unearthed beneath a depot hut in Cape Royds, Antarctica. And not any old whisky: 3 cases of Chas. Mackinlay & Co’s Rare Old Highland Malt – bottled over 100 years ago.
Shackleton Nimrod Crew 1909
The back story. Ernest Shackleton, he of the (heroic) attempt to cross the Antarctic in 1914, had in 1907 set off for the South Pole. Another grand failure (this being then, when process – adventure, low odds, maybe dying – far outweighed product), the trip had resulted in the aforementioned depot, abandoned and – for the next century or so – hardly visited, useful only in so much as the freezing temperatures gifted archaeologists an almost perfectly preserved artefact.
All this changed in 2007, upon discovery of the whisky, and exactly at the right time, when that is brown spirits was beginning to give the likes of vodka a righteous kicking. Excavated in 2010, the find made world news, and sensing something extraordinary in the story, Whyte and Mackay, who own Mackinlay, despatched Paterson to New Zealand, to find out whether the whisky was still, well, whisky.
Hang on. Rewind. New Zealand? Yup. They own that bit of Antarctica; they own the depot: ergo, their whisky – and, it being an artefact of national importance, a whisky therefore deemed untouchable. In other words, the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust wasn’t prepared to dance, no way, not even with Richard Paterson. Anyway, they did (cometh the hour, cometh the dancer etc.), and Paterson duly returned to Scotland, handcuffed to a freeze-box containing 3 bottles of Old Highland.
Which brings us back to the Shackleton Replica, or as it is fast becoming known The Shackleton Whisky. Having had the whisky analysed (and discovered thousands of chemically things, including Orkney peat, American white oak, 47.3% ABV), Paterson used a range of youngish to old malts, the backbone being a (rare) 30 year old portion from Glen Mhor, to create a whisky so similar to the original as to be virtually indistinguishable. Or so says Dave Broom, one of the few people ‘allowed’ a taste of the old – about which, incidentally, the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust was not best pleased. Quite annoyed, actually.
So, that’s the story. Good, eh? And the whisky? Bloody fine. Really. Strong, peaty, spicy to taste, but sweet too, with elements of honey and apple, cinnamon and vanilla, the finish (which lengthens with time, so stick to it) full of smoke. Best drunk wearing a vest (white) and pants – and off the back of a roll-up or, better still, and if you can find it, a Woodbine. Delicious.
