The story of the 1951 Explorers Club Annual Dinner is famous, at least among explorers, palaeontologists and connoisseurs of exotic cuisine. Reportedly, the Explorers Club once served mammoth at a meal or did it?
Sadly, as with so many great stories, this one was too good to be true! However, this year the Explorers Club will certainly serve Mamont. Chilled, not frozen!
The ultra-premium Mamont Vodka from Siberia with its unique tusk-shaped bottle has been named one of the official spirits at the 112th Explorers Club Annual Dinner on March 12th, 2016 hosted at the Waldorf Astoria in New York.
The world’s largest gathering of explorers will focus on one of the most important and least explored areas of our planet – the oceans. The 112th ECAD, themed “OCEANS: Current of Life” will explore the earth’s last frontier making up 71 percent of the planet’s mass and 95 percent of the unexplored world, will be attended by leading oceanographers, explorers and scientists along with more than 1,000 fellow explorers.
The Explorers Club Annual Dinner is not for the faint of stomach, tarantulas, roaches and worms are on the bill of fare — just an idea of what this year’s menu might have in store. Other exotic dishes from previous years include: maple-glazed hog mask (face), apple wood-barbecued bull “rods” and testicles, turtle cakes with caper remoulade, python patties with bacon and jellyfish slivers in white soy marinade.
Diners typically arrive in groups and plot a strategy to make sure they get a taste of all the stomachchurning eats, says Gene Rurka, the club member in charge of the funky hors d’oeurves. “They come in and say, ‘You’re getting the tarantulas, you’re getting the maggots, you’re getting the eyeballs, and I’m getting the cocktails!”, whose goat-eyeball martini gives new meaning to “Here’s looking at you.”
During the cocktail reception, Mamont created several exclusive cocktail recipes and especially for this year’s ocean-themed event it will surprise guests with bioluminescent drinks, containing Jellyfishbased glow in the dark bioluminescence ingredients.
For the first time, Mamont Vodka will also showcase an extremely rare collector’s item – a Mammoth tusk-shaped bottle finished with a handcrafted cap, made by famous Russian artist and mammoth ivory sculptor Oleg Raikis. Made from a 39,000 year old mammoth tusk found in Sakha (Yakutia) Republic in Arctic Siberia, the rare item will be displayed at the Explorers Club and sold at the auction during next 113th ECAD in 2017.