Whiskey who invented

Fact, not fiction, and showing that whisky making was well established in Scotland in Well, I am happy, as an Irishman with a passing interest in whisk e y, to be able to report on the finding of new evidence which finally settles the age-old argument. Ancient writings on tanned reindeer skins, which date back to pre-Christian times, have been discovered during excavations beside the River Liffey in Dublin city.

The crude scratchings and scribblings have been painstakingly deciphered by learned archaeological academics and appear to be the work of one ancient scribe.

In fact, the skin writings constitute a diary of sorts. It appears that this distant diarist was some sort of shaman, wizard, alchemist — whatever the Celtic equivalent was in those far off days — who dabbled in a type of distillation from grain and water. Now, while it is true that the original record is incomplete and indecipherable in places, it has nevertheless been possible to piece together a pretty clear chronological picture of what this ancient distiller was about.

His name, roughly translated, was Pah-Dee, and he lived on the southern bank of the river Liffey. It seems to have been very cold while he was alive and he mentions wearing fur garments. There are drawings of large creatures, probably elks and bears. Although he records that other people lived nearby in the region which would become the city of Dublin , it is apparent that Pah-Dee was a scribe, wise man and inventor rolled into one. Tastes bad.

Made me dizzy and sick and I had to lie down. Later, chieftain Gurk and his retinue came by. I showed them my two wooden discs joined by a straight branch I made yesterday. Gurk said he could see no use for such a device, so I threw it in the fire.

I reheated the first runnings of fire water in the pot and collected through the worm as before. Taste is better, but still not good. Chieftain Gurk, tax collector Froo and others came by and I gave them some.

Andrew Usher mixed traditional pot still whiskey with that of a new batch produced in a Coffey still. Usher met stubborn resistance from traditional Irish distillers, many of whom claimed that this new blend was not whisky at all.

Still, his company became the first to produce and mass-market a bottled blended scotch, and even became a popular import in the U. However, the federal government made an exception: the prescription of medicinal whiskey from a doctor, to be sold through a licensed pharmacy.

During this same timeframe, the pharmacy chain Walgreens used this to their advantage, growing from 20 stores to nearly They also laid out the specific regulations that are to be met in order to label a whiskey as bourbon. For more details, read the What is Bourbon? Join our rewards program to be added to our email list where we share this content. Never Miss a Post Join our rewards program to be added to our email list where we share this content.

They recorded details of the process in manuscripts in the early 12th century. Some historians believe that the first person to use distillation to make liquor was the Arab chemist Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan, who did so in AD.

They believe he used distillation to purify a beverage made from fermentation to discover that it created a very strong form of alcohol. The earliest record of distillation in Europe occurred in Italy in the 13th century, when a philosopher named Ramon Llull used it to distill alcohol from wine.

Sometime around this period, distillation became much more common in Europe. This was largely thanks to the traveling nomads and Christian monks using distillation to make medicines for medical conditions including palsy and smallpox. It is believed that distilling techniques were brought to Ireland and Scotland between and by these Christian monks. It is around this time that the first whiskeys were made. However, farmers were probably experimenting with distillation using their excess barley sometime around this period.

As you can see, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Gaelic is a variation of Celtic spoken which was developed in the Highlands of Scotland.

By the 16 th Century, whisky was being widely consumed, particularly by the royalty. The number of distilleries in Ireland and Scotland quickly grew around this time. European colonists arriving in America in the early 17 th Century brought the practice of distilling whisky with them. Taxes rose dramatically and the English Malt Tax of was introduced. This caused many Scottish distilleries to go underground. The first commercial distillery was established in Kentucky in , by a man named Evan Williams.

The Americans were a bit more flexible when it came to mash ingredients and experimented with corn, wheat, and rye all popular varieties of American whiskeys today. By the late 18 th Century, excises were levied on whiskey to help pay back the debts incurred during the war.