• Whiskey
Whisky or whiskey? Scotch or bourbon? What is what? In short, whisky (as the Scotch say) or whiskey (as the Irish and Americans say) is simply distilled grain alcohol that is aged in a wooden cask.

• History
Monks are thought to have transferred Middle Eastern perfume distilling techniques to the Emerald Isle sometime in the ninth century.  Instead of smelling lovely, they decided they needed to keep warm during the chilly day and feel “happy” into the night, so they developed a means to distill grain into alcohol.  They called it Uisge Beatha, “the water of life.” “Uisge” eventually became “whisk(e)y.”

Their technique quickly made it across the sea to Scotland and the two drinking powers have been arguing ever since as to which country is really the granddaddy of distilling.  Thankfully for us, the Scots and Irish brought their skills to the U.S. some 300 years ago.  They can fight over who has the world’s oldest distillery; we’ll just drink the stuff.