Well this was strange. Sitting on the terrace of the Explorers Club in New York sipping a California wine and quesily anticipating “Delicacies from Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-16.” Strange, because if you know the story, the expedition is legendary not just for Shackleton's daring ambition to cross the tremendous span of Antarctica on foot - but for his ability to lead and bolster his men's morale through every horror and threat to human life Antarctica could serve up, including starvation. They ate the dogs.

If you don't know the story you should immediately add Kenneth Branagh's two part A&E dramatization to the top of your Netflix queue. Or read Caroline Alexander's "The Endurance."

When Shackleton set out from South Georgia Island, the experienced hands at the Norwegian whaling stationed warned that this winter was already giving signs of being the most severe in memory. Newly constructed of planks of oak and Norwegian fir up to 2 ½ feet thick, the "Endurance" was able to break through a thousand miles of ice flows for six weeks; but as the temperature plunged to -30 º, she became locked in the glacial ice and was slowly crushed and destroyed.

 Although they hastily removed all the supplies they could, it soon became necessary to cast off and reduce their rations to the absolute minimum their sledges could carry, as they man-hauled them over the rough glacial terrain. Their beloved dogs ran along behind them. There would not have been enough food to feed the dogs, if they also worked them.

The 28 crew members managed to survive on their own stored body fat, penguin and seal blubber, and, as their rations ran out - one biscuit and a ¼ of a can of tinned stew for each man, each day. Then finally, it became necessary to shoot and use their beloved dogs for their meat.

As luck or common sense would have it, the evening's menu at the Explorers Club offered different ingredients.

Cal Dennison, winemaker of Redwood Creek, the evening's sponsor, had paired each wine with an authentic

Explorers Club recipe of the period.

A “Pemmican Pudding”of pulverized buffalo meat and dried currents was served with the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon.

Argentinian Ostrich and South American Prairie Hare, with the 2005 Chardonnay. The "Tantalizing Turtle Bisque",

with the 2006 Pinot Noir.

Did Charles Greene, Shackleton's cook, really serve up foods like these on the expedition?

Except for the pulverized buffalo meat, and unless the turtle bisque came from a can, the answer

is, highly unlikely.

And did it make sense for a fairly new California winery to be the evening's sponsor? The answer is absolutely.

As much as in Nascar racing, it is sponsorships that have always made explorations possible.

The first ordeal of every explorer, is raising the money. The British Royal Geographic Society had promised Shackleton

1,000 £ 's but only provided 500. His major benefactors were three wealthy individuals: Sir James Caird, a wealthy Scottish

jute manufacturer; Janet Stancomb Wills, the daughter of a tobacco tycoon; and Dudley Docker of the Birmingham Small

 Arms Company.

After the destruction of the "Endurance," its three life boats were reinforced with timbers salvaged from the ship and christened in honor of Caird, Stancomb Wills and Docker – just as in 1908, having conquered the massive and previously unknown glacier that rose 9,000 to 12,000 feet above the Ross Sea, Shackleton christened it, the Beardsmore, after one of that expedition's principal sponsors. (Although there were salacious rumors at the time that Shackleton was really honoring Mrs. Beardsmore).

Public school children raised the money for the dog-sledging teams. Most of the rest of the funds came from what nearly a century later we call "promotional considerations." Shackleton sold exclusive news coverage of the expedition to the London Daily Chronicle, and the presence of Frank Hurley, the brilliant cinematographer who gave us a permanent record of the expedition, was the result of a motion picture deal Shackleton had struck. When things seemed most dire, Shackleton told Hurley that he would turn over his own percentage of the photographic rights to Hurley if he did not survive. "But there's a trick," Shackleton said. "I don't intend to die."

 Next Page

The Wine and Spirits Explorer

The Case of the 100 Year Old Scotch, They Never Left Home without It.