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Recovered Hoard · Recovered

Shackleton's Whisky

Cached 1909 · found 2010, Cape Royds hut, Ross Island, Antarctica
RECOVERED
Evidence status: Historical tradition. no documented source (historical tradition); legal status unknown (manual verification recommended). This account is presented as historical tradition, not verified fact. Manual verification recommended. Repository evidence: 0 sources · 0 timeline events · 0 media items · legal unknown · view on the Map Evidence on file: historical tradition

Shackleton's Whisky: still unexplained.

Mackinlay's Rare Old Highland Malt, frozen under the floorboards

The law of this ground: Antarctic heritage sites are protected, the crates were returned under treaty terms.
The subject
The manifest
Mackinlay's Rare Old Highland Malt, frozen under the floorboards
Last known, where the trail went cold
Three crates were found frozen into the ice beneath the Nimrod expedition hut in 2010, the whisky inside still liquid, still perfect.
The account

Shackleton walked away from his hut in 1909 and left the Scotch under the floor. A century later conservators chipped the crates free and a master blender was handed the most carefully thawed dram in history, then recreated it bottle for bottle. The originals went back to Antarctica, by agreement. Some treasure you return.

How it was found
  • Crates of Mackinlay's whisky left under Ernest Shackleton's 1907 hut were found frozen into the Antarctic ice over a century later, in 2010, still liquid and drinkable, and a distillery flew samples out to recreate the lost blend.
What the record holds

What remains open

  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
What we know, and what we don't
Established

No documentary claim is yet established. The account rests on tradition.

Still open
  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
The evidence room

No documentary or visual exhibits have been located yet. The trail below and the open leads are where this dossier grows next — every exhibit that enters here carries a source.

Where the trail points now
  • Search Library of Congress + DPLA (IIIF) for period cartography of the site.
  • Run Chronicling America for dated newspaper mentions.
  • Query NARA for archival records tied to the site.

Have a source, a map, or a clipping? Add a lead and it enters the record with its citation.

Start the hunt here
The first leads, so no one walks in cold.
Sources and the record
Related case files

The full hunt kit

Starting brief, what's known and disputed, evidence timeline, source list, map card, coordinate-confidence and legal-access summaries, and a field checklist, free with a Fellowship account.

Latest Word From the Newswire

Context, not proof. The dossier's own sources remain the evidence record.

Checking the wire…

Chart position -77.550°, 166.170° View on the Map