by Wayfarer

Created on: December 17, 2008   Last Updated: December 02, 2011

THE WATER OF LIFE

Mention Scotland to a foreigner and they might think of castles, mountains, Nessie, men in kilts, Braveheart, or Sean Connery, but the image uppermost in many minds will be Scotch Whisky!

Despite rivalry from Irish, Japanese and American producers, Scottish Scotch is still reckoned the best in the world. And why shouldn't it be? We've been practicing making it a long, long time.

Archaeologists can prove Scots were distilling spirits 6,000 years ago. Would you care to bet it was anything other than whisky? Although in those days it would be known by the much more romantic Gaelic name of Uisge Beatha. The translation of that name, Water of Life, is one which many aficionados would still agree with today.

The "cup o' kindness" referred to by Rabbie Burns in Auld Lang Syne is undoubtedly whisky.

The Uisge was genuinely considered to have medicinal properties, being prescribed for colic, palsy and even smallpox. In 1505 the Guild of Barbers were granted a (much ignored) monopoly over the making of whisky. An incredible fact that reveals the belief in medicinal properties because barbers were often surgeons as well!

Those early Scots producers were undoubtedly onto a good thing, far too good for the government to leave alone. In 1644 the government slapped it's first tax on our national drink. These days between 60 and 70% of the price of a bottle goes to the tax man.

After thirty years of taxation the whisky producers effectively went "underground". The excise men responded with a heavy hand and a hundred years of bloody skirmishes followed before an accommodation was reached.

The very idea of such taxation was so alien to Scottish thinking that a century of smuggling took place with very little moral censure on the Scots side. The local minister might even play a role, and smuggling whisky in a coffin to escape the eye of the exciseman was not unknown.

By the 1880s as many as 14,000 illicit stills were being destroyed each year, but this accounted for less than half of the illegal whisky produced. The rest was still warming Scottish hearts without a penny being paid to the government!

Eventually even the government will recognise when it's fighting a losing battle. New laws were passed that meant producers could make a profit and the government still got its cut. Overnight hidden stills became legal. In fact many of our largest whisky producers today stand on the same locations as their illegal predecessors.

Whisky was set for the world stage.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>