On This Day in History: June 1

The invention of Scotch Whisky

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“If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap!” Not true though, as there are plenty of good whiskies out there, and they’re all capable of giving you one of the worst hangovers you ever had.

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: June 1, 1495--

Let me hear you say uisge-beatha na h-Alba after you’ve had a few drams. That’s Scottish Gaelic for “Scotch whisky.” But not whiskey. I’ll cover that.

The first day of June 1495 was a great day. A great, great day. Although some would come to curse the name of John Cor, it was on that day the Tironensian Monk stationed at Lindores Abbey in Fife had his name mentioned on the Exchequer Rolls of King James IV for making batches of what some say tastes like turpentine, and others are willing to spend stupid amounts of money on. To give you an idea of how seriously the Scottish took this new invention, on said Exchequer Rolls it was referred to as aqua vitae: water of life. Well, they’d been making it for a while before that date. But that date is the first time someone finally crawled out of a drunken haze long enough to write shit down.

You know how all thumbs are fingers but not all fingers something something? Same with Scotch. It’s all whisky, but not all whisky, or whiskey, is Scotch.

The stuff was originally made from malted barley, but then people got creative to come up with new and interesting ways to kill brain cells. “Aye, Angus! Dinnae be puttin’ any o’ da corn shite in me Scotch or I’ll jam a caber up yer arse!”

The Scottish are pretty uptight about the rules for making Scotch.

Oh, and if Henry VIII wasn’t enough of an asswipe already, after he defeated James IV in battle, he dissolved the monasteries where it was made and proclaimed the making of Scotch illegal. Ye bastard! Yeah, that worked about as well as the 18th Amendment—the not drinking one—to the U.S. constitution did. Later on, the English figured out they could tax the stuff, and all of a sudden the gubmint approved.

The Irish had been in the game for a while already but included an “e” in whiskey. Americans often like putting corn in theirs and calling it bourbon whiskey. Canadians are known for their rye whisky. There are a small number of whisky distilleries in England, which I expect many Scots consider a crime against humanity.

Fins, Germans, Mexicans, Danes and many others make the stuff now. If you ever get a chance to try Yamazaki whisky, do it. In Japan they sell it at 7-Eleven.

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