One of the more interesting liquors that we have at Judicious Spirits is the Scotch Whisky. Yes, I have spellcheck. There isn’t supposed to be an “e” in the spelling of Scotch Whisky. There is no “e” in Canadian whisky either. Why, you ask? I have found only a couple reasons for that. The first is that for a time in the early 1800′s Scotch whisky developed a poor reputation and the market was saturated with this below-grade stuff. Since, at the time, all whisky was spelled without the “e”, and the Americans and Irish needed to differentiate themselves from the Scots swill, they added an “e”. I’ve also heard that the Scots believe that more vowels wastes good drinking time. I’m not sure what the Canadians think of the added “e”.
Scotch whisky has five main regions from where it is distilled: the Highlands, Lowland, Islay, Campbeltown and Speyside. Each region has it’s own tasting notes. Here’s a link to malts.com so you can explore those more in depth. You can also find Tasting Notes on our website for selected Single Malts and Scotch by Category. Heres a link for that…Scotch Whisky…Scotch Whisky Tasting Notes by Category.
So, all that, so far, is pretty interesting. But did you know that Scotch whisky is aged in used oak Bourbon Barrels? And that whisky does all its aging in the barrel and not the bottle? That means the age of the whisky is the time between distillation and bottling. Did you also know the original Gaelic term for whisky is ”breath of life”? Did you know that America spends the most on whisky but France drinks the most? Now you do.
