Reply to post: Re: Vote Yes

JINGS! Microsoft Bing called Scots indyref RIGHT!

BlartVersenwaldIII
Headmaster

Re: Vote Yes

Both are correct in that they are both words used to describe a spirituous liquor distilled from malted barley, but the two are distinctly different from both an etymological and a legal standpoint.

Scottish whisky is, unanimously as far as I'm aware, without the E. Irish whiskey has the E because the spelling of the two words in scots/irish gaelic is different (usquebaugh vs. uisce beatha IIRC) and hence the transliteration into english was different. Paradoxically enough, this different spelling was popularised due to the piss-poor quality of scottish whisky in the 19th century when the irish were making much higher quality stuff, so the extra E was used to differentiate a superior product. The E stuck in the US due to the large number of irish immigrants who, quite rightly, bought the techniques for their own whiskey over with them. Those of you who've seen "Addicted to Pleasure" will have some insight on how terrible scottish whisky was back in the late 1800's.

As to your other question - IMHO there's no contest. Lagavulin is far superior tipple to a glenfarclas, at least if we're talking about the 16yr vs. the 15yr (the 17yr is a different and rather more expensive beast) :)

Here's hoping they don't fall on the recent trend of abandoning their aged single malts altogether like macallan and auchentoshan seem to have done (instead selling "selections" or whatever they call them for the same price as the single malt). I picked up six bottles of the macallan 12yr sherry oak before the supply started to dry up and they've doubled in price already. And after all the product placement in Skyfall for their aged single malts too! /hangs head

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon