Whisky through the Ages:
A Distillation of the History of Uisge Beatha

By B. R. Forbes

Perhaps whisky was not the power behind the raising of Stonehenge.

But throughout it's turbulent past, whisky has sparked legal controversy and inflamed passions. The ease with which we buy a bottle of 15-year Glenmorangie today belies the centuries-old scientific, legal, financial, and often bloody struggles around the ability to produce and sell "uisge beatha." Presented here is a brief look, a distillation if you will, of the major events surrounding this "water of life."

Whisky: The Early Years

The first record of a distilled beverage is not, alas, from our beloved land of Alba but from India. As early as 800 B.C., a rather fiery liquor called "arrack" was distilled from whatever was at hand such as molasses, aniseed, dates, coconut palm sap, grapes, and perhaps grains. According to André Simon, author of A Dictionary of Wine, Spirits and Liquors, "some Arrack is much worse than others, [but] there is no Arrack pleasing to a cultivated palate."

Aristotle wrote of distilling in his Meteorology - but in what capacity we can only wonder. In the first millennium, or Y0K as today's jargon would have it, Briton St. Patrick was sent to Wicklow, Ireland, to spread Christianity. He was also reputed to have introduced the art of distillation - whether to drum up business or to offer for communion, scholars do not say. However, St. Patrick's introduction of whisky to the Irish seems cause enough for canonization.

Little is recorded about distilled spirits for a thousand year period, from Celtic bard Taliesin's "Song to Ale" circa 560 AD until 1494. It was then that the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland first mentioned "aqua vitae," Latin for "water of life." Several mentions of whisky occur in the first half of the 16th century until the first law regarding aqua vitae was passed in 1548.

This launched a legal battle over whisky that lasted for over two hundred years.

Whisky: Ferment to Foment

Barley was primarily grown as winter feed for cattle, a staple of the Scottish farm life. Surplus grain was naturally distilled into liquid protection against the long winters. Therefore, the first Act of the English Parliament affected most farmers while seeming innocuous enough. It simply ensured that seventeen days were allowed for steeping and drying barley in order to make malt.

This was just the first volley between the government and the naturally independent Scottish farmer. In 1555, the Scots Parliament generally restricted the use of barley for whisky during poor harvests. The penny dropped in 1579 when the Scots Parliament actually restricted distillation of whisky - and exempted the very aristocracy that passed the Act.

The Crowns of Scotland and England united in 1603 when Scotland's James VI ascended the throne of England, becoming James the First to the English. Yet the Scots still had their own Parliament and laws.

Following the English Civil War in 1643, the puritanical government had a dim view of spirits and levied whisky mercilessly. As a response in 1644, the Scots Parliament levied a excise duty (or tax) on ale in order to finance the Royalist Army. Cromwell finally relented and reduced the tax on spirits in 1655.

Drams and Drums

The "Glorious Revolution" deposed Roman Catholic James VII (or James II to the English) in favor of his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. This eliminated the influence of the Scots in the English Court - and began the Jacobite cause that sparked four uprisings (in 1689, 1715, 1719, and 1745) and the infamous "massacre of Glencoe." In 1707, the heavily-bribed Scots Parliament eliminated Scottish self-governance by voting for the "Act of Union" which combined the Scots and English Parliaments. The most egregious result happened after the second rising with the passing of the 1716 Disarming Act, which was strengthened in 1725.

Before the Act of Union, the clannish Scots had few taxes since they did not have a large central government. Now, they were part of a huge colonial and military power that required taxes. For the next thirty years, violence erupted over attempts of the English Parliament to control and tax whisky.

The 1725 Malt Tax sparked riots throughout the country. The 1736 Gin Act, which instituted licensing whisky-sellers, indirectly sparked the "Porteous Riots" in Edinburgh. Captain Porteous of the Edinburgh guard fired on a mob he feared would rescue whisky smugglers. The 1743 "Act about the Gin Act," strengthened the original Act -- preceded the fourth Jacobite rising by two years.

Whisky Under Siege & Over Taxed

After the final Jacobite uprising in 1745 and defeat at Culloden in 1746, the Act was broadened to forbid using blunt-edged eating knives, wearing of the tartan, and playing the bagpipes. While trying to control the spirit of the Highlanders, the English Parliament also attempted to control the spirits of the Highlands.

Over the wearying years after 1746, the lives of the Scots changed greatly. Clan chieftains without glory of battle at home found new honor and privilege in the British Colonial Army. The potato replaced barley as a basic food staple. The agricultural way of life gave way to the increasing power of the merchant class.

Whisky distilling became a business rather than an agricultural sideline. While the English government increased taxes, whisky merchants attempted to wrest control of whisky production and distribution from the farmers and lairds.

In the hundred years from the 1750 Final Gin Act to the 1846 Repeal of the Corn Laws, the whisky wars pitted commerce against government. The soldiers in these single malt skirmishes were the whisky-distillers and the excisemen, who enforced whisky taxes and seized illegal stills. Even Scotland's greatest bard, Robert Burns, was a malt marine. He became an exciseman in 1788 to enrich his meager poetry income and, no doubt, to stay flush for larking about with the lassies.

New World, Old War

As Burns observed, "freedom and whisky gang the gither." This was no less true in the New World as in the Old. Scots brought to America their love of both independence and strong drink. The Whisky Rebellion in Pennsylvania was a good example.

In a typical piece of federal deal-making, the new U.S. government agreed in 1790 to assume all the debts incurred by the states after the Revolutionary War. In return, the states agreed that the nation's capital city would be moved south from Philadelphia to what is now Washington DC. In order to raise the funds for these debts, in 1791 the federal government imposed an excise tax on whisky - which affected the "frontier" farmers far more than the Washington elite who preferred wine and port. The revolt against the tax started in western Pennsylvania and spread to Hagerstown, MD, and various parts of Virginia. The rebellion was crushed by President Washington who himself led an army of some 13,000 men into Pennsylvania.

Courting the Malt Merchants

Back in Scotland, a host of new commercial distilleries were founded as family and "illegal" distilleries went dry. In this new phase of whisky history, the notable events became distillery foundings, partnerships and lawsuits - rather than uprisings, rebellions, and wars. Legal courts, rather than royal, held sway.

For example, in 1880 Colonel John Gordon Smith went to court on the use of the name Glenlivet. The court held that he was the only one entitled to use the label 'The Glenlivet', all others had to use a prefix. In 1906, the Islington Borough Council brought up the famous 'What is Whisky?' case. Basically, this was a question of using malt versus using grain in the production of whisky. The magistrate's court decided in favor of malt. However, a 1908 Royal Commission on Whisky decided that a blend of grain and malt also may be considered to be Scotch whisky.

Another black period in the history of whisky (and all spirits) was the U.S. Prohibition from 1920 to 1933. While Prohibition put a damper on (legal) whisky, it seems to have helped make the fortune of Joseph P. Kennedy. A legit liquor distributor before 1920, sources attribute a good chunk of his change to being a bootlegger in partnership with organized crime during the Prohibition era.

Another major shift in the 20th century was the growing importance of advertising. In the U.S., the liquor trade association voted for a voluntary ban on radio in 1936 and then television in 1948. Seagram's broke that practice in 1996 when it aired its TV commercial for Crown Royal. Nowadays, many whisky distillers and distributors use the web on the Internet to connect with lovers of single malt whisky.

Onward Uisge Beatha

In spite of bans on liquor advertising, the whisky business thrives today. Scotland's overseas sales from the whisky industry totaled £2.28 billion 1996. Across the U.S., single malt societies are helping more American learn about and appreciate fine Scots whisky. They, along with An Comunn Uisge Beatha, will ensure a living history of the "water of life!"

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