Mackinlay's Rare Old Highland Malt Rises Again

The legendary Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton once said, "if I had not some strength of will I would make a first class drunkard." His storied adventures in the South Pole speak to the scope of the man's willpower but, make no mistake, Shackleton also enjoyed his whisky.

In 1909, severe weather conditions and dwindling supplies forced Shackleton and the crew from the Nimrod to abandon their two-year quest to be the first to reach the South Pole. In their haste to get the hell out of there with unfrosty nads, they left behind a few provisions including -- and we can only assume this was inadvertent -- three crates of fine Scottish whisky. One hundred years later, the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust found the abandoned booze, perfectly preserved in the ice beneath Shackleton's hut. It was later identified to be whisky from Chas Mackinlay & Co., produced at the Glen Mhor distillery in Inverness.

And since we live in an age when no good marketing opportunity goes unexploited, the Mackinlay's Rare Old Highland Malt has been reborn. Of course! Now, there's an interesting story surrounding the Mackinlay's brand, the company that has owned it since 1995, and the palingenesis of the Shackleton whisky. Rather than recap all that here, I'll direct you to Tim F's blog at TheWhiskeyExchange.com, in which he lays it all out quite succinctly.

I'm here to tell you how the stuff tastes: Really, really good. So good, in fact, that I am prepared to bestow the coveted Imbiber Imprimatur© upon it DESPITE what I would normally consider a prohibitive suggested retail price of 200 bones. It's a blend of whiskies ranging in age from 8- to 30-years-old, and the most seductive aspect of the finished product is the sweetness. Not cloyingly sweet, mind you, but smooth and delicious -- certainly as dessert-like as fine whisky comes. Caramel. Apple. Nutmeg. I tasted all of that right up front, with some pear and lemon on the finish. All of it balanced perfectly, a credit to master blender Richard Paterson, who hailed the discovery of the whisky under the ice as “a gift from the heavens.” Indeed it is.

Oh, and you're going to need a cigar to accompany this spirit, as I'm sure old Shackleton would have wanted it that way.

For more visit http://www.enduringspirit.com

I’ve long been fascinated by inventors who were able to enhance a very cool and useful thing that already existed simply by adding another existing thing to it.

Visionaries like Hymen Lipman, who received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil. And Dr. Spencer Silver, who took an ordinary piece of paper, slapped a re-adherable strip of adhesive on the back and called it a Post-it.

Men the world over owe a huge debt of gratitude to reproductive physiologist Gregory Pincus for figuring out that women are a whole lot more fun to be around when combined with a pill that inhibits fertility.

And, of course, big ups to whoever the genius was who saw laser lights and thought, “you know what would make the emission of electromagnetic radiation through a process of optical amplification even cooler? A Led Zeppelin concert and some blotter acid!”

CLICK HERE TO READ ENTIRE POST ON FOODREPUBLIC.COM

Our first guest on this edition of the most liquorlicious podcast in the listen-o-sphere is Mr. Craig Boreth, proprietor of Twice the Vice, where chocolatey goodness meets delightful tipsiness. Boreth infuses fine dark chocolate with top-shelf liquor like Macallan, Elijah Craig and El Diamante, to name a few. It's genius. And tasty as all hell.

We're broadcasting from inside the cozy confines of The Basement Tavern in Santa Monica, and later in the show we're joined by bar manager TJ Williams, who knows a thing of twenty about whiskey.

Tune in and tune out.

Enjoy the sweet buzz of sauce-soaked confections.

I once knew a guy from South Philly named Denny Capriotti. He was a former Golden Gloves boxing champ turned, ahem, "collection agent." Everybody called him Knuckles. There were two certainties whenever you hit the town with Knuckles and his crew: 1) You were gonna get drunk, and 2) you were gonna get into a brawl. Sometimes we were the ones savagely beaten, but most of the time—due in large part to Knuckles’s proficiency in the sweet science—the other guys got the worst of it.

I lost touch with Knuckles in my early 20s, around the time I realized my future lay in rearranging words, not faces. To this day, though, I still credit him with teaching me some extremely valuable lessons. He gave me pearls of wisdom like “never take a swing at someone when you're wearing a nice watch." He'd had too many bands break on him and wanted to spare me the pain. Another of his: "Never go bowling in shorts." This one I can't explain, but I know instinctively that it's true. And Knuckles gave me one more rule that has become one of the primary guiding principles of my close personal relationship with alcohol. To wit: "Drink like a fucking man, man!"

As it turns out, though, this extremely simple rule is not always so simple to follow. Where exactly do you draw the line when it comes to separating manly from metrosexual? Or separating metrosexual from something you might see Steven Cojocaru sipping at a Gaultier show after-party during Fashion Week? (And believe me we know, if you’re the sort who might actually be at a Gaultier after-party during Fashion Week, then you don’t need us to tell you how to drink.)

Stretch and I dropped by the posh Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills for the grand opening of 10 Pound, the very first dedicated The Macallan Single Malt Scotch Whisky bar in the U.S. We talked single-malt Scotch with Paul Ross of The Macallan, and enjoyed a few drinks with the one and only Jimmy Yeager of Jimmy's in Aspen, creator of the event's signature cocktail, The Jimmy Mac. Have pen and paper ready, cuz Jimmy divulges the recipe in the podcast!

Ran into my pal Joel Stein of Time magazine at the event. Didn't get him for the show, though. He's shy. Seems our friend Alison Brie of "Mad Men" and "Community" (pictured), with whom I was on a panel with recently, was there as well, but didn't run into her. That's a bummer, because she's kinda dope. Did spy a dude named Jesse who's on "House" though. He was surrounded by adoring female fans, so we left him alone.

I'm still giddy at the memory of all the delicious Macallan we had that night (and still a bit hungover, too!)

Funny show, this one. Give a listen. Links below.

And please pass along the link to your friends, so that we might make some new ones ourselves.

 

Ross Hendry of the Glenrothes visits the studio with yummy Scotch in tow.

Bless you, Ross Hendry.

We heart Scotch.

But one question: Why didn't you bring along a bottle of the John Ramsay Expression for us to taste? Is it because it costs more than a grand, and we're not worth it? I sure hope not, Ross Hendry. We're quite sensitive, Stretch and me.

Funny show this one is, kids. With, like, useful information and stuff too. You should give a listen.

Cheers!

In our latest Imbiber Exclusive Video, I lead you through a rather overindulgent tasting of six fine single-malt Scotches, including Springbank, Glenmorangie, The Glenlivet, Laphroaig, The Singleton and Bowmore. I'd like to think that had he lived to see this, the great Michael Jackson (the esteemed booze critic, not the freakish pop singer) would have been proud.... although, that almost certainly would not have been the case.