The whisky is a worldwide spirit. From its origin in Scotland and
Ireland, his consumption and elaboration have been spread all over the
world. The name ‘whisky’ is a corruption of ‘uisgebaugh’, the Gaelic
word for water of life. Uisge was corrupted first into ‘usky’, which
finally
became whisky after several centuries. Monks on the Emerald Isle are
said to have been distilling ‘uisege baugh’, as far as the twelve
century.
The earliest certain chemical distillations were by Greeks in
Alexandria in the 1st century AD but these were not
distillations of alcohol. The medieval Arabs adopted the
distillation technique of the Alexandrian Greeks, and written
records in Arabic begin in the 9th century, but again these
were not distillations of alcohol.
The early communication of the Phoenicians with Ireland in all
probability introduced the knowledge of distillation into the country.
Originally the pale, strong spirit which were called uisge baugh in the
Irish form or uisge beatha by the Gaelic speaking Scots of the Celtic
language until 1170. The earliest historical reference to distilling in
Scotland appears in the Scottish Exchequer Rolls for 1494, where there
is an entry of ‘eight bolls of malt to Friar John Cor wherewith to make
aquavitae’.
Ancient whisky
