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Moonshine, riots, rebellions, distillers carrying guns, mafia bosses and royal connoisseurs. The history of whisky is far from boring.
Distillation was used for various purposes in the ancient world, but as for whisky’s first appearance, we owe that to Christian monks. Monks were the globe trotters of the early half of the last millennia. On their travels, those monks learnt a great deal, including the art of distillation, which they brought back from the continent to the British Isles no later than the fifteenth century, maybe three centuries earlier. Distillation was used to make what was known in Latin as ‘aqua vitae’, the water of life. So it was, that the servants of God made the water of life that would become the whisky we know and love today!
Well, a particular Irish chieftain drank far too much of that ‘water of life’ at Christmas in 1405 and was laid to rest before he’d got to play with his other new presents. This is the first mention of whisky in history, a cautionary tale of moderation.
Whether whisky was first produced in Ireland or Scotland is the topic of fierce debate (and rightly so!), but the oldest mention of whisky in history we know of is Irish, although it's doubtful the chieftain in question would be pleased about that. But, by the fifteenth century, whisky was being produced in both countries.
The first mention of whisky in Scotland is on an equally grave note, taxes. The Scottish Exchequer rolls of 1494 reveal that King James IV of Scotland ordered that ‘aqua vitae’ be made, specifically mentioning malt. The King asked for eight bolls of malt, which would translate to a lot of whisky, a lot. The king was quite a connoisseur, and after trips to Islay and Inverness, he began to spread the joys of whisky across Scotland, which made the spirit very popular.
This new liquid ambrosia became known in Gaelic as ‘uisce beatha’ (pronounced ‘Ish-ka ba-ha’ in Irish and ‘Ooshkih beh-ha’ in Scots Gaelic), still meaning ‘water of life’. This was shortened and eventually Anglicized to whisky.
