Booze prospectors set to drill for Scotch whisky in the Antarctic

A team is set to drill through Antarctica's ice sheets in search of precious, valuable liquids. But it's not oil they're searching for - it's a lost cache of vintage Scotch whisky that has been on the rocks since a century ago.
The drillers will be trying to reach two crates of McKinlay and Co. whisky that were shipped to the Antarctic by British polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton as part of his abandoned 1909 expedition.
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.
Restoration workers originally located the whisky reserves under the hut's floorboards in 2006. At the time, the crates and bottles were too deeply embedded in ice to be dislodged.
Only some bottles will be rescued in the drilling expedition - under Antarctic conservation guidelines, the rest must stay put.
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.
But Al Fastier, who will lead the expedition in January, 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 whisky could still be drinkable and taste exactly as it did 100 years ago.
If he can get a sample, he intends to replicate the old Scotch and put McKinlay whisky back on sale.
'I really hope we can get some back here. It's been laying there lonely and neglected. It should come back to Scotland where it was born.
'Even if most of the bottles have to remain in Antarctica for historic reasons, it would be good if we could get a couple,' Paterson said.