Whisky History - The beginning of Whisky
People will always argue about where whisky was invented. Scotland or Ireland? Well distilling was brought to Ireland by St. Patrick in 432AD, but the first written recording of it being sold was in Scotland 1494 and it soon became widespread as knowledge spread on how to distil whisky and soon afterwards nearly every farmer in Scotland became a maker of whisky. As you can see there is a lot of time between the two dates. The Celts could be the first to produced whisky as they named their liquid usquebaugh which means ‘water of life’ and the word whisky also comes from the gaelic word 'Uisga'.
In the early years of whisky there was no period of ageing and after the whisky was distilled it was consumed. So the whisky had a raw taste. It was then discovered by accident when a cask was forgotten about in the mid 18th century and when the owner of the cask tasted the whisky he found that the whisky mellowed after ageing thus the process of ageing began and why we have whisky maturing now for years just to have the correct taste that we all love.
In 1707 and the Act of Union, Scotland and England join parliaments and soon after taxes were introduced on distilleries and malts. Of course this did not go down well and a lot of illegal whisky was beginning to be produced. But more penalties were brought in to reduce this illegal trade and smuggling of whisky. The penalties where very steep and in a very short space of time this practice nearly disappeared.
Generally whisky was really only sold within Britain, but as time when on it spread around the world and is sold in most countries. Also with it being sold worldwide other countries producing there own whisky. Hence why this website is about all the whiskies in the world and not just relating to whisky in Scotland and Ireland.