"I brought Angostura bitters because I guessed (correctly) that the bottom of the globe would be missing the critical ingredient to make a proper Manhattan," Broughton said.

Broughton's downtime during his Antarctic days mostly consisted of watching DVDs left by previous tenants, talking online with family back home, and reading an assortment of books that had been abandoned by previous crews. There was also a pool table, some rusty musical instruments, and a gym "meant for all sports and thus good for none."

Occasionally, they entertained themselves with daredevil stunts, like running from a 200-degree sauna to touch the South Pole while wearing nothing but shoes. (He did this twice).

But there was a major downside to living in what is basically earth's version of outer space: the torpor of nonstop winter set in quickly, and so did depression and alcoholism for some of Broughton's compatriots. And as the resident volunteer bartender, he saw first hand the ugly side of living in the "big dead place."

***

If you want to escape your problems, Antarctica is the furthest you can go, as Broughton has noted. In 2000, he was working in Silicon Valley, and after a particularly bad day at work, he came home, sat down at his computer, and thought:

"What is the furthest I can get away from these assholes?"

He typed "Antarctica" into a job search engine, and by October 2002, he was at the bottom of the earth, working for a National Science Foundation contractor as a science cryogenics technician. ("It was my job to take care of the liquid nitrogen and liquid helium for experiments.") He was deployed for a year -- including one very long winter.

The continent is vast, high desert, and it's one of the driest places on earth. A one-mile walk across the glacial ice required suiting up in the local body-armor, complete with thermal underwear and a special parka. Broughton said that while he struggled with permanently chapped, cracked skin, he eventually acclimated to the cold. At first, negative 30 didn't feel so bad, he said, and on some days even negative 80 could be tolerated, albeit briefly, in a t-shirt.

Broughton is from Florida, and before he landed at the South Pole, he had seen snow a total of five times.

"I've now seen enough snow to last me a lifetime," he said.

***

A bored, trapped, and cold population naturally gave rise to a bar. Club 90 South was a simple, wood-paneled joint with a hole in the wall opening up to the outside, where the bartenders would put the Jagermeister to keep it chilled. Massive pallets of beer, wine, and liquor were flown in with the winter crew, and they prayed it would last until them all nine months. The previous year's team, Broughton said, ran out of wine and beer early.