There was one thing the industry was sure of: Vijay Mallya wouldn’t send his private jet to New Zealand for nothing. His honourable guests were three bottles of whisky. They had to be flown in to Scotland where the distillery of Mallya-led Whyte and Mackey is located.
Once the bottles reached Scotland, Mallya asked the master blender of his distillery, Richard Peterson, (famously known as Richard ‘the Nose’ Peterson for his keen sense of finding and blending good whisky) to sit over the drink, analyse it in detail and to unlock the mysteries behind it.
One hundred and three years earlier.
Ernest Shakleton, a famous explorer, made an ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. He was hopeful and was in high spirits. When he took five cases of Mackinlay's Rare Old Highland Malt he did not anticipate that the weather in Antarctica would turn tough and they would have to make a hasty retreat back home. The sea began to freeze after a few days; they had to abandon their camp. “A live donkey is better than a dead lion,” he famously said before abandoning all his provisions in the camp and turned back.
A century went by. In 2007, The New Zealand Antarctic heritage Trust engaged in the exploration and restoration of artefacts from the South Pole stumbled upon a treasure — the camp of Shakleton. When they pried open the floor of the camp, set up by the explorer, they saw three cases of frozen whiskey buried under the ice.
They knew the value of their find.
The crates were immediately flown back to New Zealand. The whisky needed careful thawing, stabilisation and detailed study. Soon, hectic work began in the Canterbury museum to defrost and examine Mackinlay's Rare Old Highland Malt.
When the conservators sat down to pore over the contents, the packaging and the bottles, the global spotlight had already focused on them.
It was then that Whyte & Mackay, which owns Mackinlay, leapt at this incredible opportunity. They set their heart in recreating the antique charm. Its billionaire owner Vijay Mallya knew how antiquity would translate into money.
Talks soon led to action. But there was a final hitch.
The Antarctic Trust wouldn’t let the bottles slip out of New Zealand in a regular aircraft, unaccompanied. History deserves some more respect. Mallya took his private jet, collected the bottles and flew them back to Scotland, where his distillery was.
It was time for Richard Peterson, the master distiller at Whyte & Mackay, to enter the scene. The legendary ‘nose’ tasted the drink; he was satisfied with the light taste of the whiskey, in spite of its age. “A gift from heavens for the whiskey lovers,” he said.
What Mallya wanted from Peterson was to replicate the original Mackinlay spirit that slept under the ice in Antarctica for a century.
The rest is history.
Whyte & Mackay blends spirits from Speyside, the Island, and the highlands to recreate the whisky down to the last detail. They even ladled the rare 1983 Glen Mhor to the final blend to replicate the original taste.
With a generous strength of 47.3 per cent, the new spirit sends down the mouth the same warmth people had savoured a century ago.
When you buy a bottle of Mackinlay’s Shackleton Rare Old Highland Malt, Whyte and Mackey contributes five pounds from the money to the Antarctic Heritage Trust to help them continue with their noble work.
(Manu Remakant is a freelance writer who also runs a video blog — A Cup of Kavitha — introducing world poetry to Malayalees. Views expressed here are personal)
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