Know Your Whiskey: Scotch (Whisky)
Scotch, or simply “whisky” in Scotland, is a hundreds-years-old tradition that is delicious. “To Friar John Cor, by order of the King, to make aqua vitae VIII bolls of malt,” Exchequer Rolls 1494-95. Yeah, that’s right, in the year 1494 they were calling Scotch the water of life. How awesome is that?
Scotch is one of the most famous and venerated types of whiskey there is. Ordering a Scotch in America just oozes classy. From Anchorman to How I Met Your Mother, Scotch is the drink of choice for the hardened (and rich) bachelor.
That Exchequer note is the first concrete historical record of Scotch, but legend has it that St. Patrick taught the Irish how to make whiskey in about 500 AD and then the Scottish learned from them. So that’s a seriously long time. Until 1823, it was also a happily illegal tradition, since when England took over they tried to outlaw most of the whiskey producers in Scotland. The response was, obviously, to set up an extensive smuggling network until they finally legalized production with the 1823 Excise Act. Think of it like Prohibition that lasted for a couple hundred years.
So what’s the difference between Scotch and other whiskeys, anyway? Most importantly, Scotch comes from Scotland. Similar style whiskeys are produced all over the place, most notably Japan, but they aren’t Scotch unless they’re from Scotland.
Scotch gained its present position as the classy liquor of choice back in the 1880s due to an unfortunate plague, actually. A nasty little bug called the Phylloxera Beetle, which embeds itself into grapevines to lay eggs and thus kills the vines, was imported to France from the US and nearly destroyed French vineyards, including those that produced brandy. Luckily, winemakers were able to import American vines that were naturally resistant to the beetle and while French wine was nigh-dead for 30 years, it came back with a vengeance. And we can all enjoy a nice Armangnac, thanks to the intelligent response to that crisis.
But back to the issue at hand. During this crisis, Scotch became the drink of choice across Europe, and people got so used it that they kept drinking it to today.
Beyond coming from Scotland, Scotch has some other legal requirements (unlike the Canadians, who are far too loose with their regulations). It has to produced at a Scottish distillery from water and barley. You can add other whole grains to it if they’ve been fermented at that distillery and only by the addition of yeast. It must be distilled to less than ABV 94.8% in order to retain the flavor of the raw materials, be matured in Scotland in oak casks for no less than three years and one day, not contain anything added except water and caramel coloring, and not be bottled at less than ABV 40%.
Scotch comes in single or blended form, and there are five further categories it can fall into. However, since buying a bottle of Scotch is like buying a bottle of French wine, we feel that to properly attend to your very basic Scotch edukation we have to save all that for another post. I hope you were paying attention, there will be a test on this material next week before we delve into more of the intricacies of Scotch.
