mac, whisky A simple whisky ⇒cocktail usually consisting of two measures of Scotch whisky and two of green ginger wine - of which the Edinburgh firm of Crabbie produces the best known version - served in an ⇒Old-fashioned glass. Some recipes suggest rather less wine than whisky, perhaps proportions of two-thirds to one-third.
Grindal describes the whisky mac as being 'old enough to be an institution in Scotland' and unlike most cocktails its origins are clearly Scottish rather than American. It is very much a 'winter warmer' of a drink, ideal, as Grindal suggests, as an accompaniment to the sport of curling or after a cold round of golf. (SoW) The genesis of the name is unclear, though 'mac' serves to root the drink firmly in the Celtic tradition. Mac is the Gaelic word for 'son', which of course occurs in many Scots and Irish names of Celtic origin, so something along the lines of 'son of whisky', 'a drink from whisky' is a plausible possibility. It may also have the sense of a diminutive, a 'diluted' form of the original.
McCoy, the Real Most whisky writers confidently assert that this expression, which is parallel in meaning and application to the Real Mackay, has its origins in the ⇒prohibition period in America, though one alternative view dates it to the last decade of the 19th century. Whichever version is preferred, it seems likely that it was taken up in the States as a mild pun on the extant Scottish expression 'the Real Mackay', and its first attestation occurs in 1922.
The popular story goes that when supplies of spirits were carried by ship from various locations - most notably the Bahamas - for illegal sale and consumption in America, the ships would lie at anchor while small boats operated by ⇒bootleggers would sail out to buy supplies of spirits, the stretch of coast between Atlantic City and Boston becoming known as 'Rum Row" because of this trade. ('Rum' was often used during prohibition to denote any alcoholic drink.) One man who regularly sailed between Nassau and Rum Row was Captain William McCoy, of Scots origin and living in Florida, who began running liquor in 1921 using a schooner named Arethusa. By this time suppliers and distillers were often meeting the immense consumer demand with very poor quality liquor, and McCoy decided to make his reputation by supplying high quality products, chiefly Scotch whisky. This strategy worked well, to the considerable financial benefit of McCoy, whose name entered the English language as a result of the reputation he acquired. In particular, McCoy ran large quantities of the popular blended whisky Cutty Sark for the London firm of Berry Bros and Rudd Ltd, and as Neil Wilson puts it, 'under his pilotage "Cutty Sark" remained "the Real McCoy" for thousands of thirsty Americans'. (S&W)
The second version of the origin of 'The Real McCoy' - and the one favoured by The Oxford Dictionary of Modem Slang - concerns the boxer Charles 'Kid' McCoy (real name Norman Selby), who was born in Indiana of Irish parents and was world middleweight champion in 1897. He was a notably inconsistent boxer who would sometimes 'throw' fights but when 'the Real McCoy' fought he was outstandingly good. He fooled the reigning champion Tommy Ryan into believing he was dying of consumption and then knocked him out to take the middleweight title, appropriately going on to become a film actor before committing suicide in 1940.
It may that there is an even earlier claimant to be the source of the expression, namely Joseph McCoy, who made his fortune in the 1860s by transporting cattle from the railhead at Abilene, Kansas, to the stockyards of Chicago. According to Andrew Eraser of Inverness, 'McCoy had boasted he could deliver 200,000 cattle in a decade but sent over two million within four years, hence the expression, "The Real McCoy".' (Scotland on Sunday, 17 November 1991)
Mackay, the Real A colloquial synonym for 'the real thing', 'the genuine article', first recorded in 1883 and originally applied specifically only to good Scotch whisky, but now much more widely used. Often thought to be no more than a Scottish variant of the more usual ⇒the Real McCoy, the Real Mackay probably predates that expression, being in regular use well before 1900, according to Partridge. (DoHS) The origins of the expression are obscure, though the ODoMS notes the suggested derivation that 'it refers to the true chieftain of the clan Mackay, a much disputed position ... '. Hugh McDiarmid (A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle) uses it in its original context:
Forbye, the stuffie's no' the real Mackay,
The sun's sel' aince, as sune as ye began it,
Riz in your vera soul; but what keeks in
Noo is in truth the vilest 'saxpenny planet.
maize An American graminaceous plant or the grain produced by it, otherwise Indian ⇒corn. From the Spanish maiz, a word of the Cuban dialect, also the Arawak marisi and the Caribbean márichi. In French maïs, mahiz in the 16th century. The first attestation of maize occurs in 1555, This kynde of grayne they call maizium', and specifically regarding whisky at what seems the late date of 1893, 'Maize-whiskey could be bought at fifteen cents a gallon'.
Along with malted ⇒barley, maize is a staple ingredient of ⇒grain whisky in Scotland and Ireland and is used extensively in American distilling, where it is known as corn.
make The product of a distillery, whisky. Writing in the 1880s of Scotland's northernmost mainland distillery of Pulteney in Wick, Caithness, Barnard observes that, 'Previous to its erection, Mr Henderson was the proprietor of a small Distillery further inland for a period of nearly thirty years, but on finding the demand for his "make" increasing, he determined to start a Distillery nearer the sea coast, which in those days was the only mode of transit to the south ... '. (WDotUK)
The OED lists no sense of make which is totally appropriate to the term's whisky-related usage, the closest being 'the amount made or quantity produced', first attested in 1865: The make of puddled iron has been materially reduced at many of the works.' 'Make' is still current in distilling circles, Lamond writing of experiments on the ⇒spirit safe carried out in the 1820s at Port Ellen Distillery on Islay, 'tests had to be made to ensure that it had no harmful effects on the make'. (MF)
The term ⇒new make as a synonym for ⇒spirit which has not undergone a period of ⇒maturation also occurs.
When all the foreshots have been distilled, whisky starts to be produced. Known as 'new make', this is piped away to the spirit receiver. It is colourless and contains about 60% alcohol by volume. Until the First World War when legislation was introduced prohibiting the sale of whisky matured in the wood for less than three years, new make was a popular drink. It was stocked by many public houses, particularly in industrial districts, and drunk as a chaser with beer. Pot still malt new make has a tang of iodine, but a distinctive whisky flavour. (CSDB)
malt Old English mealt. As a noun, malt is barley or other grain prepared for brewing or distilling by steeping, germinating and ⇒kiln-drying. The first attestation occurs prior to 700. As a verb, with the sense of to malt, to convert ⇒grist into malt, the first recorded use is in c.1440, 'Maltyn or make malt ... '.
The word maltings for the place where malt is prepared and stored is first recorded in 1846, 'A spacious malting', and the term came to supercede malt-house which is first attested in c.1050 as mealthus. The phrase malting floor is first recorded in 1840, and maltman - one who malts - is first attested in 1408, 'Iohn plot, Citaysyn and Maltman of london'. The Scots variant mautman dates from the 17th century, and is now largely confined in usage to Caithness and north-east Lothian. Neil Gunn-a native of Dunbeath in Caithness - is one of the few writers on whisky to use 'maltman' rather than the more usual maltster (first recorded between c.1370 and 1380): 'As one old maltman put it ... '. (W&S)
Inevitably, 'malt' came to have colloquial associations with drinking and being ⇒drunk, for example malt-worm - a weevil which infested malt - gained the transferred sense of a lover of malt liquor, attested in c.1550: 'Then dothe she troule To me the bolle As a good malte worme sholde'. The verb 'to malt' also gained a slang usage to connote getting drunk, first noted in 1813, 'Well, for my part I malt'. The transferred colloquial use of malt to mean malt liquor also occurs, and is first attested in 1718, using the Scots spelling maut: 'The bauld billy took his maut, And scour'd aff healths anew'. The expression 'a glass of malt' is sometimes used to indicate malt whisky as opposed to blended, and in Ireland the expression a ball of malt is current, though rather perversely it is very unlikely that the Irish drinker means malt whisky by this request; he uses the phrase to mean Irish whiskey, since very little Irish is actually malt whiskey within the usual terms of definition. The Scots phrase, 'The maaut is abune [above] the meal' - current from the 18th to the early 20th century - meant under the influence of drink. A good example of usage occurs in Scott's Old Mortality, 'when the malt begins to get aboone the meal ... thay are like to quarrel'.
The first attestation of malt whisky occurs as late as 1839, 'The distiller of malt whiskey calculates on obtaining two gallons of proof spirits from one bushel of malt.' In Scotland and Ireland malt whisky must by legal definition be distilled in a ⇒pot still and made only from malted barley, though the American definition of malt whisky is very different, namely a whiskey made from not less than 51% malted barley in either a pot or ⇒continuous still. For Gunn, malt whiskies were 'the real uisgebeatha', and after almost a century during which their identities were nearly always submerged in blends, single malts have again found a growing market. As well as being the staple ingredient in malt whisky production, a quantity of malt is also essential when making ⇒grain whisky.
In whisky distilling, as in beer-making, malt is barley which has been prepared for successive stages of the production process by converting the starch stored in it into a soluble sugar called maltose. This is then utilised in the ⇒fermentation process to produce ⇒alcohol. Essentially malting merely serves to speed up a natural sequence of events. The barley is soaked in a tank of water called a ⇒steep, where it absorbs enough water to enable germination to occur. It is then placed in a ⇒couch to drain before being spread out on the malting floor to a depth of two to three feet and allowed to germinate. Once spread on the malting floor a batch of barley is known as a ⇒piece. Whilst on the floor the barley sprouts, and its temperature is controlled by regular turning of the piece with ⇒shiels, an action which also has the effect of preventing the roots from becoming entangled. The bed of malt is gradually thinned out over eight to 12 days, until it is only three or four inches deep. The barley is kept at a constant temperature of around 16°C, and once it has sprouted to an optimum degree it is known as ⇒green malt, although it is actually still pale yellow in colour. As Gunn explains, 'By this time the acrospire or growing stem has almost reached the point of coming through the husk and the starch has become soft and chalky. As one old maltman put it: "When you can write your name on the wall with it [the ear], it's ready".' (W&S) Further growth is then prevented in order to conserve the sugars for fermentation by ⇒kiln drying, during which ⇒peating also takes place.
Only a handful of Scottish distilleries currently operate their own traditional floor makings, as they are labour intensive, occupy a comparatively large area of space and take a relatively long time to produce malt. As early as 1910 the cramped Glengoyne Distillery in the Campsie Hills of Stirlingshire decided to buy in malt and abandoned its own makings in order to devote the space to other distilling activities. It follows that in most distilleries now the first stage in the whisky-making process is the production of grist from malt.
Several of those distilleries which still malt their own barley do so principally as a visitor attraction. Units whose maltings are still in use include Bowmore and Laphroaig on Islay and Highland Park near Kirkwall on Orkney. The Campbeltown distillery of Springbank restored and extended its floor makings during the 1990s, and now no longer needs to buy in any malt at all, though in this instance the adherence to floor makings has everything to do with a belief in their importance when distilling on a small scale and nothing to do with pleasing casual sightseers.
Most malt is now produced in highly mechanised centralised makings such as those at Burghead on the Moray Forth in northeast Scotland. Two principal processes of mechanical malting are used, namely drum malting and ⇒Saladin malting, though in the most sophisticated modern plants germination and kilning can take place in the same vessel, and Morrice notes that the Static Box is 'a more sophisticated piece of equipment capable of doing the steeping, germinating and kilning processes in sequence'. In drum makings the barley is placed in large revolving drums in which the temperature is controlled by blasts of air. A form of drum malting was introduced at Glen Grant Distillery on Speyside in the 1890s, and was also in use at the North British Distillery in Edinburgh and at the now demolished St Magdalene ⇒Lowland malt distillery from the 1920s until the 1950s. The concept was developed on a large scale during the late 1960s and early 1970s, notably by Scottish Malt Distillers (a DCL subsidiary) who installed drum makings in their new making plants at Burghead, Glenesk, Ord and Port Ellen as increasing labour costs and the greater relevance of economies of scale dictated the closure of many distiller-based makings in favour of centralisation.
McDowall describes the dry malt as 'crisp and friable like toast, pleasant to the taste'; it 'may be kept in malt bins for several weeks till required'. (WoS) Gunn writes, 'In all this malting process, skilled judgement is needed, for the goodness of the malt determines not only the quantity of alcohol that may result from its fermentation but the quality of the ultimate distillate itself. (W&S)
malt, blended Previously known as a ®⇒vatted malt, the term blended malt was adopted as one of five formally defined Scotch whisky categories. 'Blended Malt Scotch Whisky: a blend of Single Malt Scotch Whiskies, which have been distilled at more than one distillery.' (Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009)
Manhattan A classic whisky ⇒cocktail, usually made with ⇒rye, though ⇒Bourbon is substituted in many recipes. As its name implies, the Manhattan is a product of New York, and was first included in Harry
Johnson's 1882 Bartenders' Manual. It was therefore well established before what Alan Reeve Jones describes as 'the so-called Cocktail Age of the 1920-37 period'. (DLT) Its exact ingredients and proportions are disputed, but Reeve Jones gives 'the authentic recipe' as one measure of Bourbon whiskey, half a measure of dry vermouth, half a measure of sweet vermouth and a dash of angostura bitters, stirred, strained into a cocktail glass and served with a cocktail cherry.
marriage In the whisky trade marriage is the harmonising of spirits prior to bottling. 'After thorough mixing the blended whisky is stored in casks for a further period, usually of no more than eight months to "marry" before bottling'. (SGtS) The term is not confined to blending, however, as Cooper uses it when writing of ⇒single malts, 'Before bottling, a selection of casks distilled in different months and years will be married together'.
(LBoMW) Similarly, regarding ⇒vatted malts, he writes that they are 'malt whiskies from various distillers which have been married or "vatted" together to produce a harmonious whole'.
From a semantic point of view the transferred sense of marriage from 'wedlock' to a more general term to imply an intimate union is first attested in c.1420, 'Into the lond let synke A reed right by, and bynde in marriage Hem to, lest wynde offende her tender age'. The first attestation to be concerned with the marriage of liquids occurs in 1855: 'I ... crost By that old bridge ... where the waters marry'.
mash Used as a noun in brewing and distilling, mash is ⇒malt mixed with hot water to form ⇒wort. From the Old English másc, máx, possibly related to OE miscian, to mix. Mash is first attested in c.1000 in the combination 'mash-wort', 'Drince wermed on max wyrte awyllede'. The use of 'mash' as a verb, to mix malt with hot water to form wort, is recorded during the 14th century, where it is implied in mahssingfate, mashing fat or vat.
Mashing - also known as extraction because it is a process which brings about the extraction of fermentable sugars - takes place in the mash house, following ⇒malting and preceding ⇒fermentation and ⇒distillation in the whisky-making process. Together with fermentation, mashing is usually considered to be part of the ⇒brewing stage, and certainly much of the vocabulary is common to the production of both beer and whisky. In malt whisky the mash consists entirely of malt, but in ⇒grain whisky production the mash usually consists of some 20% malted barley and 80% unmalted grain.
The mash of ⇒grist and hot water is mixed in a large circular vessel, known as a ⇒mash tun - a term first attested in 1889, 'leaving the mashing stage we descended to the underback room below the tuns'. Modern mash tuns are covered to conserve heat and are usually constructed of stainless steel, though iron and even copper tuns are still in use. Their capacity can vary from 2,000 to 8,000 gallons, and they have perforated floors, through which the wort can be removed, along with an arrangement of stirrers attached to a central axle which ensure maximum sugar extraction from the grist. Moss and Hume make the observation that 'More complete extraction of the grist has been made possible by the use of the German Lauter tun, adopted from brewing practice, and pioneered at Tomatin Distillery. Many distilleries have installed tuns of this type, or "modified Lauter" tuns as developed by Newmill of Elgin and other distillery engineers'. (MoSW) Once in the tun the mash looks like thin porridge. 'While the water and the grist marry together, stirred and kept at a critical temperature, the starch is converted into maltose and dextrin and the sugary mixture that results is known as wort'. (CCtW)
The wort is drained out of the mash tun to a worts ⇒receiver or ⇒underback, prior to fermentation, and more hot water is pumped into the tun and mixed with the residue from the first mashing. Further mashings are made on the grist with increasingly hot water until all the fermentable sugar has been removed. Daiches notes that 'the characteristic smell that hangs around a distillery is compounded of many factors, but the pungent smell of the mashing is central'. (SW1) See also ⇒sparge, ⇒draff.
Along with ⇒Bourbon and ⇒rye, ⇒Tennessee sour mash is one of the distinctive styles of American whiskey, though the sour mash process is by no means unique to Jack Daniel's and other Tennessee whiskeys (Old Crow advertises itself as 'The Original Sour Mash'), being used to some extent by all distillers of ⇒straight American whiskeys. It is during the filtration process that Tennessee whiskeys gain the distinctive character that warrants their comprising a whiskey category of their own.
The sour-mash technique was first used by Jack Daniel's in the early years of the 19th century, when it was known as 'yeasting back'. As Jack Daniel distillers point out 'there is nothing really "sour" about Sour Mash Whiskey. We call it sour mash, because our distiller uses part of the previous day's mash to start the fermentation in each new batch. Therefore, all the mash is "related".' This process is thought to reinforce the flavour and bouquet. Jackson writes that the residue 'is known as "backset" or "setback", and is taken from the base of the still. It may be added to the grain mash in the cooker, the yeast mash, the fermenting vessels or all three'. (WGtW)
mashbill North American term for the 'recipe' of different grain and the percentages of them used to make a specific ⇒expression of whiskey.
'The Jim Beam house style is characterized by high proportions of rye and corn in the mashbill … '. (EC:W)
maturation Adopted from the French maturation, itself adapted from Latin mātӣrātiōn-em, a noun of action from mātӣrāre. The earliest use of maturation was with regard to the formation of purulent matter (first recorded in 1541), from which came the sense of ripening and of development, initially relating to fruits and plants, but also to man and his faculties, the progress to full growth and development. The earliest use of the word mature - adapted from the Latin maturus, ripe, timely, early - was with regard to prolonged and careful deliberation; plans formed, conclusions reached after adequate consideration. The first attestation occurs in 1454, 'The Justicez, after sadde communication and mature deliberation ... '.
With regard to liquors undergoing preparation for use, the sense of maturation is of having their natural development completed, and the first attestation occurs in 1605, 'So wee see that wine in whose maturation or ripening the heate of the sunne Failed are made more crude and sharpe'. The precise sense usually applied to whisky, what happens to it in the ⇒cask, is said by the OED to be first recorded in 1902, 'A lengthy process of maturation in sherry casks is required to make it [whisky] a wholesome beverage'. However Barnard refers to a bonded warehouse 'celebrated for maturing the Whisky in two or three years ... ' . (WDotUK).
Neil Gunn elegantly captures the essence of the process of maturation and its virtues when he writes 'the maturing of whisky is a natural slow process, during which an ethereal aroma is developed and the pungent taste of the new spirit gradually disappears giving place to a mellowness and flavour that suggest body without loss of cleanness to the taste'. (W&S) For Grindal, the transformation from 'fiery, crude and unpalatable' new make to ' ... smooth, mellow spirit' is 'one of nature's miracles'. (SoW) New make whisky is colourless, and as Moss writes, 'As it matures the whisky changes in character drawing colour and flavour from the wood. Some of the higher alcohols gradually change into esters and other compounds with delicate subtle aromas, strengthening the individuality of each whisky'. (CSDB)
Gunn observes that no one seems to know who first discovered that whisky improved by being kept in ⇒wood. He conjectures that a smuggler's keg was perhaps once hidden or misplaced and rediscovered after some years. The spirit was then found to be so much improved that the practice was deliberately adopted and in time spread further afield. (W&S) In the early days of illicit distillation, the difficulties of concealing the whisky casks would have discouraged maturation. As Jackson writes, 'Although the benefits of maturation are said to have been known to wealthy cellar-owners since the early days of distilled spirits in Britain, whisky was not systematically aged until the late 1800s'. (MWC) The first reference to whisky maturation occurs in Elizabeth Grant's Memoirs of a Highland Lady when she is writing of King George IV's visit; the king drank only ⇒Glenlivet and she was instructed by her father to provide some from the family cellar. She describes this whisky as 'long in wood, long in uncorked bottles, mild as milk, and the true contraband gout in it'.
Maturation remained no more than a matter of good sense amongst distillers and blenders concerned with the reputation of their product until 1915, when Lloyd George introduced the Immature Spirits Act which stipulated a minimum maturation period of two years, soon extended to three years. Lloyd George's action had more to do with his concerns over drunkenness, particularly amongst munition workers, and a desire to cut general consumption of whisky than with any interest in the quality of the product, but the outcome was actually to the great advantage of the whisky trade. One regret among reputable ⇒pot-still distillers had been that the Royal Commission of 1910 failed to recommend a minimum period of maturation when it supplied its definition of whisky, and large quantities of almost new ⇒patent still spirit had for some years been finding its way on to the market.
No spirit, either malt or grain, is legally entitled to be termed Scotch whisky unless it has been both distilled and matured in Scotland for a minimum of three years, and in practice very few distillers would consider anything less than five years an acceptable maturation period, though grain whisky is rarely considered to improve with age. Irish whiskey also has to be matured for three years, whilst in the United States 'the American classics are usually aged for not less than four years', according to Jackson. (WGtW) Corn whiskies, however, are marketed without maturation, the Georgia Moon brand being guaranteed 'less than thirty days old'!
'At seven to eight years a pot-still whisky may be fully matured in a small cask', writes Gunn (W&S) He also makes the point that 'After fifteen years in wood, whisky as a rule begins to deteriorate'. Grindal points out that malt whiskies with a fuller flavour, such as those from Islay and Speyside, tend to take longer to mature than milder Highland and Lowland whiskies, 'As a general rule between ten and fifteen years is a good age for a single malt Scotch, ten for the Lowland and the less full-flavoured Highland malts, twelve or fifteen for the island and the best of the Speyside malts'. (SoW) Grindal considers that in most cases a malt whisky marketed at more than 18 years of age is likely to be only marginally better than it was at 15, and may well be no better at all. In time even the best whiskies will deteriorate by taking on a woodiness from the cask in which they are stored. The process of maturation is generally considered to cease once whisky is in the ⇒bottle, though dissenting voices have been raised on this subject. Maturation is an expensive business, partly because of the cost of keeping non-earning stocks of spirit tied up in warehouses and partly because as it matures whisky loses both bulk - ⇒the angels' share - and strength.
Gunn contends that during the first couple of years in the cask the spirit is even less palatable than when it leaves the still. 'In these early years of maturing it becomes gawky and angular, an early green adolescence capable of being very self-conscious and horrid between the first marvel of birth and the final round fullness of maturity'. (W&S) Moss also takes the personificatory approach: 'Each malt reaches perfection at a different age and some will peak twice in their life - early and late with a dull middle age'. (CSDB)
The rate at which optimum maturity is reached varies from whisky to whisky and also depends on other factors, such as the type and size of cask in which maturation takes place. As Gunn explains, The smaller the cask the greater is the percentage of loss through absorption, transfusion, exposure to damp or cold or heat, and therefore the quicker does the whisky in it mature - and deteriorate'. (W&S)
The environment in which maturation takes place is a significant factor, and it is a general rule that a damp warehouse causes a whisky to lose strength but maintain bulk, and is considered better for maturation than a dry one where strength is less affected but bulk falls. Whisky matured on moist islands such as Islay would tend to lose strength, whilst bulk would be lost on Speyside where the atmosphere is drier. In the United States, where warmer and drier conditions prevail, the strength of the spirit may actually increase during storage.
The 'breathing' of the casks - slight contraction in winter and expansion in summer - can also cause quite distinctive changes to the character of the finished whisky in respect of local atmosphere. Writing of ⇒Campbeltown whiskies, Jackson notes their 'fresh, salty aroma and palate'; pointing out that it is situated on a narrow peninsula, he writes, "There is no denying the sea mists in Kintyre, and every reason why they should be taken up by the breathing of the barrels in maturation'. (WGtW) The salty atmosphere may also penetrate the earth floors of the old fashioned warehouses, floors that serve to regulate humidity by giving moisture to the internal atmosphere during hot, dry weather and absorbing moisture during wet periods.
At the opposite end of the sophistication scale, in the early 1990s the Macallan Distillery on Speyside constructed a new warehousing complex capable of holding 50,000 ⇒butts of whisky, which boasts air conditioning and insulation designed to maintain constant optimum temperature and humidity levels during maturation.
It is difficult to over-stress the importance of maturation to the finished whisky, and Gunn considers it probable that 'the most desirable flavours in whisky are produced on the malt-kiln and in the cask'. (W&S) Russell Sharp concludes his writing on the subject of maturation with a comment that would have brought a smile to the face of Neil Gunn and many others who prefer to think of maturation as 'one of nature's miracles' rather than an entirely quantifiable scientific process.
Since the lengthy maturation process imposes considerable costs on the distiller, much effort has gone into trying to accelerate the process and control the chemical changes that take place within the cask. But so complex are those changes that, for the foreseeable future, it seems likely that the most economical and convenient way of ensuring that whisky matures to perfection will be the simple one which our forebears discovered. You make a good malt spirit, you fill it into a good oak cask, and you wait 10 or 20 years. (SoS)
mellow Affected with ⇒liquor, but not generally truly ⇒drunk. Certainly the adjective usually implies a good-humoured, non-aggressive state. The drink-related usage is adopted from the figurative sense of mellow as soft, softened or sweetened with age and/or experience, lacking harshness. With reference to drink, mellow is first attested in 1611, 'to be drunke, or in drinke; to be mellow, tipled, flusht, ouerseene'. The verb sense of mellow also occurs, first being attested after 1761, 'When mellow'd with a cup of nectar'. As an adjective, it is also part of the whisky-taster's vocabulary and obviously a positive term, as in Milroy's verdict on the Speyside whisky, Imperial: 'Rich and mellow with an absolutely delicious finish'. (MWA)
In the United States, 'mellow' has the sense of 'satisfying, attractive, skilful, pleasant' according to the ODoMS, which also notes the drugs-related sense and the expression mellow out, to become relaxed under the influence of drugs, first attested in 1974.
middle cut See also ⇒cutting.
mint julep A ⇒cocktail which Jackson considers to be 'Redolent of the South, with pulchritudinous young women lolling provocatively on the porch, or in a swing, waiting for a long drink to cool, or inflame, passions'. (PBB)
There are a number of variations of the mint julep, with some barmen adding Angostura and some a touch of rum, but a basic recipe would be along the lines of muddling four fresh mint sprigs with a teaspoon of sugar and either a little soda or water in a tall glass, then adding crushed ice and at least two ounces of whiskey. ⇒Bourbon is usually specified, but a blended Scotch could be substituted, and Fleming (LWB) suggests that a julep could be made with Southern Comfort liqueur rather than Bourbon. Another Fleming - Ian - had his character James Bond specify ⇒sour mash whiskey for the mint julep that Goldfinger offered him on the verandah of his stud farm prior to some frisky 'socialising' with Pussy Galore.
Some recipes substitute brandy for whiskey, an Old Georgian Julep being made with brandy and peach brandy, while a Southern Mint Julep is made with liqueur brandy and peach brandy. Whatever the spirit employed, the drink is finished off with a garnish of mint, and opinion is sharply divided on whether or not it should be stirred before serving.
The word 'julep' is an adaptation of the Arabic Jul āb, itself adopted from the Persian gul-āb, rose-water, and in its original sense was simply a sweet drink, often just a liquid sweetened with sugar or syrup and taken with medicine. It is first recorded in c.1400: 'To ene him in e begynnynge Iulep - at is a sirrup maad oonly of water and of sugre'. The figurative sense of something to cool or assuage the heat of passion first occurs in 1624: 'She is no fit electuary for a doctor: A coarse julap may well cool his worship'.
The first recorded reference to alcohol and the julep is made in an 1804 issued of the European Magazine, The first thing he did on getting out of bed was to call for a Julep; and I ... date my own love of whiskey from mixing and tasting my young master's juleps.'
mizuwari www.eudict.com defines the Japanese term mizuwari as 'Whiskey diluted with water.' The word is pronounced 'mi-zu-wa-ri', with 'a' pronounced as 'ah' and equal emphasis on all the syllables. 'Mee-zoo-wah-ree'.
The practice of imbibing mizuwari comes from Japanese shochu drinking traditions, and it is a very popular way of consuming whisky in Japan. Typically, some two parts of cold water are mixed with one part whisky. Ice is optional.
Commercial mizurawi is widely available in Japanese convenience stores and kiosks, and is even served on trains in canned form. No mention is made of the provenance of the whisky used, and the drink is produced to a uniform strength of seven percent abv. Jackson declares that 'The word mizuwari … almost always refers to an after-work whisky'. (WGtW)
Monkey shoulder The colloquial name given to a physical complaint common among maltmen in the days when each Scottish distillery malted its own barley. The germinating barley, or ⇒piece, was repeatedly turned on the malting floor by workers using wooden ⇒shiels, or shovels, in order to prevent the tangling of rootlets and to maintain an even temperature. This hard, repetitive, physical labour tended to cause shoulder injuries.
From a medical standpoint, 'monkey shoulder' is bursitis: the inflammation of one or more bursae, or small sacs, of synovial fluid. The bursae are located at points in the body where muscles and tendons slide across bone. When bursitis occurs, movement relying upon the inflamed bursa becomes painful and motion of tendons and muscles over the inflamed bursa aggravates its inflammation. Shoulder bursitis is commonly caused by overuse of the shoulder joint and related muscles.
The colloquial term for shoulder bursitis has been applied by William Grant & Sons Ltd to a brand of ⇒blended malt whisky, launched in 2005. The company's Balvienie Distillery on ⇒Speyside is one of just a handful in Scotland to retain an operational malting floor, and Rob Curteis of Grant's explains that 'When William Grant & Sons were looking for a name to call their new blended malt, they looked extensively through the archives and spoke with distillery workers for inspiration. It was while speaking to two of the older men - Robbie Gormley and Dennis McBain - that they first heard about the maltmen's injury. In their early days at Balvenie Distillery, they worked with a maltman called Jimmy Ellis. They clearly remember Jimmy taking many days off to recover from the strenuous work with the shiel. The injury manifested itself in the form of a locked shoulder, which resulted in the arm hanging down, like a monkey's. They had a number of nicknames for the injury, including maltman shoulder, malt monkey and monkey shoulder. It was from Robbie's and Dennis's insight into a bygone era that we took the name for Monkey Shoulder. Jimmy was the last person we know of at The Balvenie who suffered from the condition.'
moonlight Now almost obsolete, and synonymous with the more commonly used term ⇒moonshine, moonlight is smuggled or illicitly produced spirit. In its literal sense as 'the light of the moon' the term moonlight is first used by Chaucer prior to 1366, and as illicit spirit in 1809, 'Yon cask holds moonlight, run when moon was none'. Barnard uses the phrase when writing of Lagavulin Distillery on Islay, recording that at the time of its founding in the 1740s 'it consisted of ten small and separate smuggling bothys for the manufacture of "moonlight".'
The basic derivation 'moonlight' as a colloquialism for illicit spirit is from the fact that its production was carried out by the light of the moon, and there is a strong implication of illegality in most examples of usage. Use of moonlighting to denote the manufacture and smuggling of moonlight extended to include other illegal nocturnal occupations, such as the late 19th century attacks on landlords and their property by the Land League in Ireland, as celebrated in the well-known Irish folk song 'The Rising of the Moon'. It also had colloquial currency as a term for prostitution during the second half of the 19th century. It has developed a widely used modern colloquial sense, defined by the Oxford Modern English Dictionary as to 'have two paid occupations, esp. one by day and one by night'. Again, a sense of wrong- doing is often implied in the term, which is American in origin, first being attested in 1957.
moonshine In a literal sense moonshine was first used as a synonym for ⇒moonlight in c.1500; and with the transferred sense of illicit spirit it is first attested in 1785, 'The white brandy smuggled on the coasts of Kent and Sussex is called moonshine'. According to Partridge (DoHS) the term had become standard English by c.1890, and was used 'Often with a specific sense: white brandy, in Kent, Sussex; gin, Yorkshire'. The first direct reference to moonshine whisky occurs in 1829, 'Moonlight, moon-shine ... smuggled whiskey'.
Writing of 18th century Irish and Scots Protestant colonists in the United States, McGuffin declares that The name "Moonshine", which soon came to be applied to all illicit corn liquor derives from "moonlighter" and was originally used in England to describe the brandy smugglers who landed at night bringing their contraband from Holland and the low countries to thirsty English customers. In some parts of the States, notably North Carolina, Southwest Virginia and Georgia itself illicit distillers were often called "blockaders" ... '. (IPoP)
The principal usage of 'moonshine' to denote illicit and often harsh, new whiskey is now restricted to the United States, though Irish and Scottish examples do occur. The first implied use of the term moonshine in the United States occurs in 1860, The moonshiners had no cargo to defend', and with specific reference to distilling rather than smuggling liquor, moonshine is attested in 1901, 'Georgia and Arkansas have the greatest number of moonshine stills'. The southern states were what McGuffin calls 'the moonshiners' heartland'. (IPoP), Georgia, Kentucky, North and South Carolina and Tennessee being particularly noted for moonshine manufacture, just as in Ireland the parallel product of ⇒poitín was traditionally made in greatest quantities in the north and north-west of the country. Moonshining continues to thrive in some areas of America just as poitín-making does in Ireland, with the contraction shine often being used to describe the spirit in colloquial usage. The distribution of the illicit liquor is frequently known as running shine. Moonshine is also known as white liquor or ⇒white lightning, and the specification of colour is highly significant, as white or clear liquor has not had the benefit of a period of maturation. The usual implication of trading in and drinking new spirit is that it has been illegally produced.
Moonshining in America began as a result of the imposition of the 1791 Excise Tax, the first American tax on distillation, which led to the Whiskey Rebellion of September 1794 and the growth of ⇒corn whiskey manufacture. Like his Irish counterpart, the American moonshiner traditionally took a great pride in his craft, grain meal always being the principal ingredient, but the advent of ⇒prohibition in the United States led to a great increase in moonshining throughout the country, an astonishing 172,537 stills being captured in 1925 alone. With the increase in quantity went a serious decline in quality and the replacement of grain meal with cheap corn sugar even in many of the 'reputable' operations, a development much deprecated by the moonshining traditionalists. As McGuffin puts it, 'Much of the stuff made was vile tasting and in many cases highly dangerous. The unscrupulous were out for a quick buck and didn't care who they maimed or killed with their poisonous "Smoke", "Jake", "Nigger Gin", "Yack yack bourbon", "Stingo", "Soda Pop Moon" or "Straightsville Stuff.' (IPoP) McGuffin also records that 'Jake' was 'almost 90% alcohol fluid extract Jamaica ginger with wood alcohol added [which] permanently paralyzed at least 15,000 people'.
With reference to both 'moonlight' and 'moonshine', in addition to the most obvious derivation of 'made by the light of the moon' there is another relevant dimension: folklore invests the moon with magic powers over earthly things; for example, plants would have greater healing properties if they were collected when there was a full moon, and liquor made under the same circumstances could be thought to possess a magic power, that of intoxication. Also a natural analogy exists in that the light of the moon was traditionally believed to fuddle the wits, hence the fact that 'moonshine' can also mean nonsense, and 'moonstruck' signifies one who is mentally deranged. The now obsolete adjective 'moony' was standard English for silly, but was also used as a slang expression for slightly ⇒drunk, first being recorded with this meaning in 1854. The extant American expression 'moon-eyed' for drunk is first recorded in 1737. MacDiarmid uses the analogy in A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, punning on the Scots word fou' with its colloquial meaning of drunk and its literal meaning of full.
'It's no' that I'm sae fou' as juist deid dune,
And dinna ken as muckle's [much as] whaur I am
Or hoo I've come to sprawl here 'neth the mune.
That's it! It isna me that's fou' at a',
But the fu' mune, the doited [mad] jade, that's led
Me fer agley [off course], or 'mogrified the warld'.
mountain dew A fanciful yet apt term usually taken to mean illicitly produced whisky or ⇒moonshine, though it is also sometimes used as a rather pompous synonym for any whisky. The first attestation of mountain dew occurs in 1816, 'A pleasing … liquor, which was vended under the name of mountain dew', and the existence in 1837 of a ⇒Campbeltown distillery called Mountain Dew suggests the term may have been in general Scottish use for some considerable time prior to the first attestation. This is backed up by Neil Wilson's revelation of a letter from Charles Murray, the Keeper of the Queen's Cellar, to Walter Frederick Campbell, the laird of Islay, sent in December 1841 requesting 'a cask of your best Islay Mountain Dew'. (S&W)
The term mountain wine occurs from 1710, and the transferred sense of dew applied to other fermented or distilled spirits dates back to 1559 and a reference to wine, 'Sowst in Bacchus dewe'. In 1884 the phrase 'dew of Glenlivat' is recorded, and a blend of Irish whiskey and ginger wine is currently marketed under the brand name Clan Dew.
Dr John Mackenzie, quoted by his nephew Osgood Mackenzie, illustrates colloquial use of the expression 'mountain dew' in Scotland during the first half of the 19th century when he writes, 'Then I began to see that the "receiver" - myself, for instance, as I drank only "mountain dew" then - was worse than the smuggler'. Illicit whisky was often made in mountainous areas for the obvious practical reasons that stills and physical signs of distillation could easily be concealed, and detection in remote, sparsely populated places was relatively unlikely. The mountain distillers would also usually have far more detailed local geographical knowledge than any inquisitive ⇒gauger. In the United States the Appalachian and Smoky Mountains were legendary centres of moonshining, as were the mountains of Connemara in the west of Ireland, where the product was also known as mountain tay, tay being an Irishism for tea.
'Dew' is a particularly appropriate noun to use for the product of distillation, as the OED's literal definition is 'The moisture deposited in minute drops upon any cool surface by the condensation of the vapour in the atmosphere'. Partridge (DoHS) considers 'mountain dew' to have been a standard English expression since c.1860, and he specifies that it is Scotch whisky, though American and Irish usages also regularly occur. The Irish folk song 'The Rare Ould Mountain Dew' contains the exhortation to 'Take off your coat and grease your throat/with a bucketful of mountain dew'.