Commander Jim Lovell and Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise - Apollo 13 - with a TWB Exclusive! Something rather epic happened last month.
Wow! Wow! Did we say, wow! What an absolute honour and thrill to see our exclusive TWB Highland Park 13 Year old, Apollo 13 commemorative bottling being gifted to Commander Jim Lovell and Pilot Fred Haise, crew members of the immortalised Apollo 13 mission. Gifted as part of a ceremony at the Space Center Houston for the unveiling of a special statue marking 50 years (delayed due to, yes, COVID!) since the fateful, but truly extraordinary Apollo 13 mission to the moon. A near tragedy ended up becoming a phenomenal feat of engineering and problem solving to bring the astronauts safely back home after a catastrophic explosion while en route to the Moon. NASA later appreciating this as 'their finest hour'.
Apollo 13 and TWB Whisky
Apollo 13 launched from the Kennedy Space Center on the 11th April 1970. On the 14th April Swigert, followed by Lovell, reported back to Houston that "we've had a problem" following a large explosion and seeing Oxygen tanks begin to deplete. The mission to land on the moon was aborted and a rescue mission to return home frantically, but ingeniously, set in motion. Thankfully, on April 17th 1970, the three astronauts safely returned to Earth. Since then the events have become embedded in popular culture, not least the blockbuster film starring Tom Hanks - we'll forgive them for the slight misnomer with the famous phrase.
2020 marked the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission. And luck had it, we had a cask of Highland Park turning 13 years old at the same time. More than fitting and a special addition to our ongoing series of Apollo themed single cask whisky at TheWhiskyBarrel.com. A rich fruity whisky with classic elements of bonfire smoke and a touch of sweet sherry. A very nice dram indeed.
(Photo Credit: Steven C Barber | VanillaFire.com)
The Whisky Barrel is truly honoured to have been able to provide our very own exclusive bottling of whisky marking the 50th anniversary of Apollo 13 to add to this wonderful occasion. We are utterly delighted to see it in the hands of Jim Lovell and Fred Haise. Finally, as we commemorate events with the two crew members and flight controller, we also remember the late Commander Jack Swigert, the third member of the Apollo 13 crew, who sadly died in 1982.
Congratulations to all the team in the evolution and creation of this fantastic statue and monument to Apollo 13. Our special thanks to Steven C Barber of Vanilla Fire Productions for facilitating the exchange of the whisky and providing a number of these images. If you want to hear more about the Apollo 13 mission directly from Lovell, Haise and more members of mission control, you can watch this panel presentation from Space Center Houston (external link - https://spacecenter.org/event/thought-leader-series/) that was held on the day of the statue's official reveal in April.
Although the Apollo 13, Highland Park 'Houston, 'We've Had A Problem' long sold out at release in 2020, you can still grab some of the remaining, more recent bottlings, only at TWB - TWB Exclusive Apollo Scotch Whisky
More to come.
