Welcome to our series sharing Food Holidays: March 26th, 2022. Today is National World Whisky Day and after the past couple weeks a drink sure sounds good, and the nice thing is I wouldn’t need to spend any money because I have all brands of liquor here including Whisky but Charlie doesn’t like me drinking and I wouldn’t want to upset him so I will pass on a drink today but if you have one, please have one or two for me as well.
Five interesting facts about Whisky:
- Whisky and Whiskey are actually the same liquor. In American-English and Irish English, it is spelled “Whiskey” but in British-English, it is spelled “whisky”.
- Did you know Whisky stops maturing after it is bottled.?
- The dark color of Whisky comes from the wooden barrels in which Whisky is aged because the wood expands and contracts with the change in temperature, making the movie in and out of the wood. The compounds from wood give whisky its dark color.
- There are more than 5000 types of Single Malt Whisky.
- Barrels made from American White Oak have been claimed to produce the tastiest Whisky.
Whether you’re a novice Whisky drinker or a seasoned professional passionate about infusing the right flavors into your brew, you can enjoy World Whisky Day which falls on the third Saturday in May, or May 27st, this year. The fact is, Whisky is a historical classic that’s been distilled with care for over 500 years. Whisky is the beverage of kings and peasants alike and for generations, Whisky was easily poured between friends and can be the catalyst to make great memories. If you’re a Whisky lover, today is the perfect excuse to celebrate with a glass of your favorite Whisky with or without Ice and Soda.
HISTORY OF WORLD WHISKY DAY
The ‘water of life’ has had a storied past. The first evidence of distillation the essential process for creating Whisky — dates back to Mesopotamia around 2000 B.C. and it wasn’t until 100 A.D. that Alexander of Aphrodisias created the first recorded instance of distillation. Alexander of Aphrodisias distilled Seawater to make it into pure drinking Water! Distillation techniques for Whisky wouldn’t come around until around 1100, at the earliest, when Monks traveling into Scotland fermented Grain Mash and created the first instance of Whisky.
However, the first year in which Whisky was officially mentioned as a distilled product was in 1405. It’s written in a family’s history that someone in their clan died after drinking too much Whisky at Christmas. Over the next hundred years, Whisky distillation became widespread in Scotland. Later, when King Henry VII of England disbanded Monasteries, many Monks made their living by selling the Whisky they distilled to the general public. Soon, Whisky was available to all!
From as early as the 1600s, Scottish immigrants to the new American Colonies brought distillation practices with them, and Whisky was available quite early in North America. Around the same time, the first Whisky distillery in Ireland was officially licensed, in 1608. Whisky made another notable appearance in the 1770s and 1780s, during the American Revolution, when Whisky was so valuable that many distilleries actually used Whisky as a currency.
To help fund Revolutionary War debt, the newly formed American government imposed a Whisky tax on the import and export of the product. This led to unrest between the government and the Whisky farmers, eventually resulting in the Whisky Rebellion between 1791 and 1794. Though George Washington sent national forces to quell the Rebellion, the Whisky tax remained a contentious issue until Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, when it was repealed.
Throughout the 19th Century, there were many inventions and industrialization practices for Whisky. For example, the ‘continuous still’ and the ‘Coffey still’ modernized the distillation process and allowed for much more cheap and efficient production of Whisky. The beverage made it through the American Prohibition thanks to a loophole which was allowed as a medicinal product and was still sold in drugstores! Walgreens profited greatly off of being able to sell the Spirit. Bourbon became incredibly popular around 1964 and, even today, Whisky is a historic and well-loved Alcohol.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
