palate With the literal meaning of the roof of the mouth, the structures which separate the cavity of the mouth from that of the nose, palate is first attested in 1382, and with the transferred sense of taste - because the palate was popularly considered to be the seat of taste - in 1526, 'Breed to a sore mouth is sharpe & harde, whiche to a hole palate is swete & pleasaunt'. The word is adopted from the Latin paldtum.
Palate is widely used to define taste elements in wine and whisky, and according to the DoD, it is 'The area of the mouth where the wine tastes are pronounced and experienced. Used to describe the taste of a beverage.' In his Malt Whisky Companion, Jackson details the ⇒body, colour, ⇒finish, ⇒nose and palate of each sample, noting that some malts 'present a very extensive development of palate'. Examples of palate descriptions include, 'Caressing, lightly malty, with the faintest hints of sherry, raisins, licorice. Very complex. Opens up with a dash of water (Glen Rothes), and 'Smoky, malty-sweet, with sourness and a very big pepperiness developing'. (Talisker).
parcel A number of casks of whisky, usually filled in sequence. The OED first attests the term with the sense of 'A part, portion, or division of something (material or immaterial), considered separately as a unit; a small part', in c.1382 as, 'Be ϸou not begiled fro ϸe goode dai, & ϸe parcel'.
The OED considers this usage of parcel rare and archaic, and certainly it is extremely unusual outside the world of whisky.
'TROPOS [inventory management software] tracks whisky stored in individual "parcels" - a number of consecutively numbered casks containing spirit of the same make, bond year and filling location'. (www.ssi-world.com)
patent still Used for the production of ⇒grain whisky, and also known as the ⇒Coffey, ⇒column or ⇒continuous still. McDowall writes, 'The idea that the alcohol in fermented wash could be driven off by steam was first developed by Robert Stein, a distiller in Kilbagie in Clackmannanshire, who patented a still on this principle in 1826'. (WoS) Four years later, Aeneas Coffey produced a vastly superior version of the ⇒patent still which was soon in widespread use. The patent still consists of two large connected and parallel columns, known as the analyser and the rectifier. As McDowall explains, 'The cold fermented wort ie the wash, goes in at one end and trickles over a series of perforated trays, through which steam is driven from below. The steam drives off the alcohol while the cold entering wash, cools the alcohol which is condensed by a cold water coil at the top of the second or rectifying column'. (WoS)
The word 'patent' is adopted from the French patent, patente, and adaptation of the Latin patĕnt-em, open, lying open. With the sense of letters patent, an open letter or document which confers rights or protection, patent is first attested in 1292. With specific reference to patented inventions, where a person or number of people are granted sole rights to make, use or sell some invention, the first attestation occurs in 1707, 'Madder ... In King Charles The First's time … was made a Patent Commodity'. In our context, 'patent' is used as in patent leather, to signify something originally but now no longer protected by patent.
peat Vegetable matter decomposed by water and partially carbonised by chemical change, often forming bogs or mosses, from where it is cut and 'made' into peats. These are still a significant fuel source in parts of the Scottish Highlands and Islands and in Ireland, where the term 'turf' is more usually employed (though Irish whiskeys are almost all unpeated).
In the 13th century 'peat' is recorded as pete, in Anglo-Latin peta, and the word occurs from c.1200 in Scots-Latin documents, though its origin is unknown. In the sense of a piece of peat, the first attestation occurs in c.1200, 'ad ipsas metas abducendas'.
Peat has an important influence on the flavour and character of whisky, both through the water used, and more directly in the ⇒kiln during malting, where the amount and type of peat used is a very significant factor in determining the character of the finished whisky. Here the noun takes on a verb sense; Cooper, for instance, writes of the process of 'peating the malt'. (CCtW) Much of the water used in Scottish distilleries flows over peat and takes characteristics from it. In plants which continue to produce their own ⇒malt, water is used to steep the ⇒barley, and the influence of peat may be introduced during that process. In all distilleries water is used during what Jackson calls 'the infusion that precedes fermentation and distillation'. 'These two elements of peatiness each have their own character, and the interplay between them is a part of the complexity of many single malts. In some instances, the water may impart a smokiness even where only a medium- peated malt has been used'. (MWC) Jackson also points out that differences of soil types will affect the peat as well as the water, and that The age of peat deposits, and their degree of grass-root or heather character, will have its own influence on the malt'. (ibid.) It is generally accepted that island and coastal peat produces a smoke with a considerably more pungent aroma than is found further inland, and this is often apparent in the whiskies from such areas. McDowall observes that 'It is not generally realised that peat is a very variable commodity according to the vegetation of which it is formed and to its depth. It may be three to ten feet deep and is commonly cut by hand. At its best it is, when dried, hard like coal and dark in colour, but it may be very soft and friable'. (WoS)
In Whisky Magazine, issue 69, May 2008, Dave Broom writes, 'Anorak corner: In Japan peat is known as Dei-tan. It means mud coal'.
Skipworth notes the existence of two kinds of peat, 'marsh peat made up of decomposed mosses, and forest peat made up of decomposed leaves and branches. It is marsh peat that is usually used to flavour malt whisky'. (SWB)
Though now largely irrelevant due to centralised maltings and alternative distillery heat sources such as coal and oil, the local availability of peat was formerly a major locational factor which determined sites for distilling.
Writing of those unfortunate souls who have not been persuaded of the pleasures to be had from Scotch whisky, Jackson (WGtW) notes that 'What they usually dislike is what they describe as a medicinal (or to be pedantic, phenolic) tang. That is the peat'. (See also ⇒Islay)
Laphroaig is probably the most distinctively peaty of all whiskies, due to its peaty water being used both for steeping in Laphroaig's own maltings and in the main distilling processes. The distillery owns 250 acres of its own peat 'lots', and Lamond notes that they seem to be 'strongly impregnated with moss and this is said to give rise to Laphroaig's particular flavour'. (MF)
S. Russell Grant addresses the issue of peat resources: 'Conservationists as well as anxious whisky lovers sometimes express concern at the considerable quantities of peat currently being used by the industry. There is, however, more peat in Scotland than meets the eye, and experts estimate that even if whisky distilling continues to increase at its present rate of growth, the country's reserves will last for at least another thousand years'. (MSW) Regarding Islay, where much of the peat bog is at least 30 feet deep, Neil Wilson prophesies that, 'So long as barley is malted on Islay, there will be peat enough to dry it'. (S&W)
It is interesting to note that Japan has its own peat deposits which have been used in whisky-making, though they are not considered ideal, being of a 'distinctively turfy, less carbonic, character', according to Jackson. (WGtW) Scottish peat is imported for use in Japanese maltings, along with Scottish- peated malt.
peatreek 1 The peat smoke produced in the ⇒kiln during malting is often referred to in Scotland as ⇒peatreek, Moss and Hume writing that 'The "peat reek" gives a flavour to the mall which is carried over to the mature whisky'. (MoSW) The Scots variant of 'reek' for 'smoke' dates from the late 14th century and is most famously employed in the affeclionate sobriquet 'Auld Reekie', bestowed on the city of Edinburgh. The adjective 'reekie' for smoky, smoke-filled, blackened or begrimed by smoke is first recorded during the 16th century, and 'peatreek' as pungent smoke from a peat fire occurs from the late 18th century.
peatreek 2 A transferred colloquialism for illicitly distilled Scotch whisky, which was formerly produced using peat as a fuel source and was therefore noticeably influenced in flavour by peat smoke. The OED considers peatreek to be synonymous with ⇒mountain dew, and also 'loosely Highland whisky generally'. Unromantically it notes that 'The "peat-reek" flavour is really that of amyl alcohol, due to imperfect rectification'. The phrase is first attested in 1824, 'A male o' sic food, washed down by a few glasses of peatreek'. McHardy uses the expression regularly throughout his book, noting in the introduction that, 'As most of the [illicit] whisky ... was made up in the hills in small bothies [turf huts] over peat fires, the whisky became known as "peatreek".' (ToW&S)
The lexical compound 'peatreek' can be considered a Scottish equivalent of the Irish ⇒poitín, and many of the frequently tall tales of its production and distribution have strikingly similar parallels in the social history of illicit distillation across the Irish Sea. The manufacture of peatreek is usually considered to be a purely historical phenomenon today, but Morton is inclined to disagree, writing of a retired Speyside coppersmith who has made small stills for domestic production, and noting that 'There are, however, stills around to this day, from Shetland through Orkney to Skye and definitely Glasgow'. (SoA)
peg A slang term for a drink of spirits, Anglo-Indian in origin, and first attested in 1860 according to Partridge (DoHS) Writing of 16th and 17th century silver drinking vessels, Marian McNeill points out that among the silver tankards from that period which have survived are 'one or two specimens of the rare peg tankards, which have small silver pegs on the inside to mark the diminishing contents - whence the saying, "to drink a peg".' (SC) Dunkling notes that the tankards would usually hold two quarts, and would be pegged at half-pint intervals; when 'peg' became a term for a drink of spirits it was 'Popularly explained at that time as deriving from the fact that every drink was a peg or nail in one's coffin'. (GDC)
period A distilling cycle, usually a week, recorded as such in distillery production data, eg 'Period 32.' Traditionally, the period began with the commencement of mashing and ended with filled casks entering the warehouses.
Chivas Brothers' Alan Winchester says that 'Our weekly production in either a malt or grain distillery is still termed a period, and it's called that in the stock control computer. In our periods we have mashing runs Monday to Sunday and distillation Wednesday to Wednesday, catching the fermentations of the mashing up to Sunday'.
With the meaning of a definite portion or division of time, period is first recorded by the OED in 1751. In Letters on the Study of History, Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke, writes, 'The particular periods into which the whole period should be divided'.
According to Nick Bridgland (DDD) 'Production at Dallas Dhu followed a cycle known as the "period" ... the entire "period" took about a week, and because of the need for the workforce to be on hand throughout, houses were provided on-site for them'.
phenols Flavouring chemicals which whisky acquires from ⇒peat during ⇒kilning. It is the phenols in Islay whiskies which give them their characteristic flavour. As Jackson writes, 'Their nose has been described as "seaweedy", "iodine" or "medicinal". They are the most phenolic of whiskies by far. A phenolic, peaty nose is found to some extent in most Scotch whiskies, and is one of their defining characteristics, but it is at its boldest in the Islay malts. (WGtW)
The level of peating in malted barley is measured in 'parts per million phenol', usually abbreviated to 'ppm,' and Ian Wisniewski (CMW) notes that 'A lightly peated malt may have a total of two parts per million phenol, with more distinctly peated malts at 30 and 40 parts, up to a peak of around 50 parts per million for the most heavily peated malts'
In chemical terms phenols are the hydroxyl derivatives of aromatic hydrocarbons, 'phenol' having its origins in the Greek ycino, shining, ycio-xio, to bring to light, to cause to appear, show. It was first used by the French chemist Laurent in 1841, in 'hydrate de phényle' and 'acide phénique', 'names which he applied to the substance subsequently called phenol', according to the OED. Phenol is first attested in English during 1849 (Journal of the Chemical Society) as 'The presence of carbolic acid in the tar has been confirmed by Laurent, who has analysed and described it under the name of hydrated oxide of phenyle (phenole, C6H5OH)'.
The adjective phenolic is initially recorded in Henry Watts' A Dictionary of Chemistry in 1872 as 'Phenolic ethers'.
piece The term applied to a quantity of germinating barley while it is on the malting floor. As Cooper puts it, 'When the barley has been raked out on the malting floor it is known as a piece; there may be half a dozen pieces being treated on the floor at any one time, all in different stages of growth'. (CCtW, 20) The barley's development is controlled by turning the piece at regular intervals, traditionally using shiels. The OED definition of a piece as 'a (small) portion of some specific substance' is closest to the whisky-related sense of the term, but this is a unique usage. It is first attested in 1832, 'The turning of his floors or pieces'.
pig 'An earthenware jar for holding whisky', according to the Scots Thesaurus (Einburgh University Press, 1999) which clams that usage is now restricted principally to Shetland and Orkney. The expression 'killing the pig' referred to a drinking session where the pig was emptied of whisky during the course of the occasion.
'The choice of the year 1937 became clear once the new blend had been created, as Peter Gordon proceeded to surprise his audience by unveiling a sealed, stoneware "pig" filled with 1937 Standfast'. (WMag news item, Issue 33, November 2003).
pissed Colloquialism for ⇒drunk. Piss as a noun for wine and as a verb for urination dates from 1290, and only came to be considered vulgar around c.1760.
The ODoMS dates first use of the adjective to 1929, also noting the alternative pissed-up, Piss-artist - 'a drunkard; an extrovert or loud-mouthed fool, someone who messes about' - is first attested in 1975, with the synonymous term piss-head dating from 1961. Perhaps 'piss-artist' has its origins in the literal sense of one who draws with piss on a wall, in the snow etc.
On the piss, (first attested in 1942) on a heavy drinking bout, and piss up, a drinking session, dating from 1952, while Partridge (DoHS) includes the obsolete term piss-factory to denote a public house, adding the explanatory note that 'liquor makes rapid urine'. The current use of pissed clearly has its origins in that particular aspect of alcohol consumption. Partridge also gives pissy pal, 'a public house crony', noting that it was principally confined to Cockney usage. He adds the splendid comment that the expression is 'Ex their simultaneous use of the urinal for one discharge of their heavy cargo'.
The common phrase 'He couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery' implies uselessness, ineffectuality; 'piss-up' also has the sense of 'A mess-up; a bungle or confusion'. (ODoMS) Piss is used in the sense of inferior drink, with weak or poor beer in particular being referred to as 'gnat's piss'. In Ecuador a locally produced whisky - possibly named for its manufacturer by a Scots expatriate with a mischievous sense of humour - rejoices in the name of Auld Piss.
plain See ⇒pot still.
plastered Very ⇒drunk. The expression is first attested in 1912, and its origins are obscure, perhaps being connected with the original medical sense of plaster as an external curative application, and the subsequent figurative usage to imply a healing or soothing means or measure, first recorded prior to 1310. 'Of penaunce in his plastre al'. The OED notes another, figurative sense of plaster which means to 'load to excess', or to 'mend or restore superficially', which could well form the basis of the later drink-related usage.
Poit dhu An Anglicised spelling of the Gaelic poit dhubh also sometimes poit dubk, literally meaning 'black pot', used both to describe the vessel in which domestic, illicit distillation took place in the Highlands and Islands, and by association also the produce of that still, illicit whisky itself. The pot would be black due to the effects of the fire over which it was heated. The Gaelic term for a commercial still was poit ruadh, red pot, presumably because of the copper colour of the stills.
'Ach, I believe you'll have to distill it yourself, Doctor, in a poit dhubh. Oh, I've had a poit dhubh myself and made the stuff. It was a grand sight on a fine summer's morning to see the way the thin blue smoke of it would be stealing up into the sky so quiet'. (WG)
Poit Dhu has been taken up as a brand name for a ⇒blended malt whisky, produced by the Skye company Praban na Linne. Appropriately it contains the Skye malt Talisker along with a number of Speysides, and is a stablemate to the excellent blend Te Bheag.
The term 'black pot' occurs in Irish usage, being recorded in 1783 when, as McGuffin writes 'the Government had imposed a £20 fine on a county or a town where any "still, alembic ... or blackpot" was found'. (IPoP)
poitín Illicitly distilled Irish ⇒spirit, the Hibernian equivalent of ⇒moonshine or ⇒peatreek, also sometimes potheen or potsheen; anglicised as poteen. The first attestation occurs in 1812, 'Potsheen, plase your honour; - because it's the little whiskey that's made in the private still or pot; and sheen, because it's a fond word for whatsoever we'd like, and for what we have little of, and would make much of''. McGuffin writes, 'The word "poitín" itself merely means "a little pot".' The colloquial Scots equivalent is sma' still. Poitín is a shortened form of uisge poitín - little pot whiskey. According to McGuffin, 'In Ireland, through time poitín has come to mean a strong colourless spirit, not unlike whiskey in taste, which is illegally manufactured and upon which no duty is paid'. (IPoP) Both McGuffin and Magee favour the spelling poitín, usually pronounced põtee n, and McGuffin opens his panegyric to the product with a special note which stresses 'Throughout the book I have spelt the word "poitín". This is the correct Irish spelling, the reason for the emasculated "poteen" on the cover is my publisher's idea'.
Behan, perhaps surprisingly, writes in Brendan Behan's Island, 'Potheen is just murder. It's the end, you can take it from me, for I have had a wide enough experience of it'. This experience may have been coloured by sampling 'prison poitín' in the Curragh Internment Camp in 1943. Behan had the habit of relieving himself into empty bottles which he proceeded to throw out of the window to eliminate the tiresome business of getting out of bed. Empty bottles for the poitín which was ingeniously distilled by the internees to celebrate Christmas were obviously at a premium, and Behan was duly presented with his share of poitín in a 'recycled' bottle that had been retrieved from below his window. The ingenuity of Irish prisoners clearly remains where poitín is concerned, as a Daily Telegraph news item from July 1992 makes clear: 'An investigation was launched at the Maze prison in Belfast yesterday into how Loyalist inmates managed to make alcohol at the jail'.
Magee shares Behan's lowly opinion of poitín, or as it is sometimes known 'wee still', though earlier commentators clearly had different views regarding its comparability with legal whiskey. Writing in 1839, Caesar Otway noted that 'To every Irishman poitín is superior in sweetness, salubriety and gusto, to all that machinery, science and capital can produce in the legalized way'. (A Tour in Connaught, quoted by McGuffin, IPoP), and a government report of 1823 stated that, 'In Belfast poitín is expensive but it is consumed principally by the better classes where price is no consequence but quality is everything'. It should also be noted, however, that a story is still told of a West Cork man in the 1920s who ran his motorcycle on poitín and allegedly syphoned off a nightcap when he got home each evening.
Traditionally poitín was made from barley, but nowadays, according to McGuffin, 'Each area has its own recipe involving malt or sugar or treacle or beet or potatoes depending on the market price and availability of whatever substance they prefer'. (IPoP) He adds 'If care and attention is taken poitín made from just malt or beet or treacle or molasses can be every bit as good as that made from barley'. The manufacture of poitín continues as something of a 'cottage industry' today, notably in remoter areas of the west and south- west, though illegal stills are also in operation in the heart of Belfast city. McGuffin notes that 'County Antrim has always been poitín country' and Antrim was home to the most famous of all 20th century Irish poitín makers, Mickey Mcllhattan, known as 'The King of the Glens', a highly respected musician and character, as well as a fabled maker of 'wee still'. The craft continues in Antrim, as viewers of the BBC television series 'The Duty Men' saw when Customs and Excise officials caught a farmer from Ballymena with ten barrels of wash and over 100 litres of finished spirit on his premises.
It is all a far cry from the situation in the early 19th century, when it is estimated some 3,800,000 of the total 11,400,000 gallons of spirits produced in Ireland in 1806 were illegally distilled rather than being what was often contemptuously referred to as 'parliament whiskey'. In Ireland the 1823 Excise Act helped legal distillers in that it replaced the previous Distillery Act of 1779, which had insisted that each licensed distillery must produce a minimum number of gallons of spirit per week, often far more than could be sold, and taxed the distiller on that level of production. A higher quality product more able to challenge poitín was the result, but in Ireland illicit distilling took longer to die out than it did in Scotland. The famine years of the 1840s and mass emigration did much to reduce poitín-making, along with better road communications and law enforcement. A highly effective temperance campaign by the Catholic church in the middle years of the century also played its part.
The golden rule of drinking poitín is always to know its provenance, as it can vary from the excellent to the nearly toxic, and one way of testing an unknown sample which has been suggested to me is to place a little of the spirit in a saucer and add milk. If the milk curdles, opt for a Jameson or a Paddy instead. One fine advertisement for poitín came to light in March 1992 when a birthday party was held in County Kerry for Bertha, the world's oldest cow, who had reached the age of 49, producing 39 calves along the way. According to a Daily Telegraph report, Bertha's owner Jerome O'Leary noted that 'She gets pretty nervous when confronted with the public but I give her a drop of whiskey or poitín to build her up.'
pot ale Also known as ⇒burnt ale and spent ⇒wash, pot ale takes its name from the fact that it is the residue of distillation in a ⇒pot still, with ⇒ale here having the sense of what the OED terms 'an intoxicating liquor made from an infusion of malt by fermentation'. 'Ale' is first attested in c.940, occurring in Old English as alu.
Graham and Sue Edwards list a secondary use of the phrase, suggesting that in Ireland pot ale was 'The religious establishments' barley-based spirit. Earliest recorded spirit in the British Isles'. (DoD)
pot still Pot as a vessel or container is late Old English or early Middle English, pott, first attested prior to 1200, 'Nim readstalede harhuna & ysopo & stemp & do on ænne neowna pott ... '. The Scots Concise Dictionary throws useful light on its origin in the context of distillation, defining a pot still as 'A kind of whisky still in which heat is applied directly to the pot. Originally one made by adding an attachment to a cauldron-type cooking pot'. It dates usage from the second half of the 18th to the end of the 19th century, though obsolescence by the latter date is clearly not accurate.
The pot still is the copper vessel in which ⇒malt whisky is distilled in Scotland and a blend of malt and unmalted barky is distilled in Ireland. Pot stills are also used to distil spirits such as cognac and rum. Jackson notes that a pot still is 'little more than a heated copper pot', and suggests that compared to ⇒patent still distillation, pot-still distillation is 'a most inefficient procedure. However, its very inefficiency produces spirits of a character and individuality that cannot be matched by more modern methods'. (WGtW)
Essentially there are two connected pot stills in most Scottish distilleries, with the first distillation taking place in the ⇒wash still and the second in the ⇒low wines or ⇒spirit still, the former being larger as it has to accommodate a larger volume of liquid. McDowall describes the pot still as 'a large onion-shaped vessel with a long, narrow neck which leads to a cooling coil or worm' (WoS) and it is interesting to note that the basic pot-still design in use today was developed during the 16th century, when, as Moss explains, 'the technique of passing the outlet pipe through cold water was introduced and the copper worm developed'. The great advantage of the 'familiar pear- shaped still' was that it prevented 'unpleasant flavours and noxious substances tainting the spirit'. (CSDB) Though McDowall's description of the pot still is basically valid, it is important to note that the apparatus varies considerably in design from one distillery to another, and that this is a major factor in the differences to be found between various whiskies which on the basis of ingredients, production technique and location ought, in theory, to be very similar. Milstead writes, 'Some are squat onion-shaped affairs, others are the traditional pear shape; still others look like inverted tulip glasses. And each has its own special way of condensing the compounds in whisky. There are 600-800 compounds in whisky and how they relate to each other and how they affect the flavour has never been established'. (BGtW)
There are many theories about pot-still design, some of which own more to superstition than fact, distillers through the years not unnaturally having been unwilling to replace a still with one of a different design when it has been producing good spirit. The whole business of making fine whisky has always been so unquantifiable in many respects that it is eminently reasonable that, having found a winning formula for its consistent creation, nothing should be done to jeopardise its continuity. At its most extreme this led to not-so-apocryphal stories of distillers who refused to move cobwebs in the stillroom and who had existing stills copied right down to hammering matching dents into their replacements. Milstead calls this 'The famous dented still myth'. Less extreme is the case of the ⇒Islay distillery of Laphroaig, where rather than scale up their existing stills and risk altering the distinctive make, the number of stills of the same size was increased to meet greater demand. The same logic was applied at a number of mainland Scottish distilleries such as Glenfiddich and Macallan. At other plants, such as Glencadam near Brechin, it was considered that only the overall shape and the neck design of the pot still was important, and larger stills which retained the same 'profile' were installed.
It is generally accepted that tall stills will produce lighter whiskies than short stills, because 'in a large still, some of the vapours condense before they have left the vessel, fall back and are redistilled'. (MWC) The ⇒Highland malt Glenmorangie is produced in stills nearly 17 feet tall, the tallest in Scotland.
Laphroaig's oily, peaty, fully-flavoured malt is produced in small, squat stills which have comparatively short necks, and the Lomond still produces what Moss and Hume call a 'heavy, rich whisky'. Long-necked pot stills such as are found at the Islay distillery of Bruichladdich produce a lighter, 'cleaner' spirit. According to Moss and Hume, The presence of a bulge in the still neck, sometimes called a 'Balvenie ball' is usually a sign that a lighter yet more flavoursome whisky is required, and the same goes for a lantern head'. (MoSW)
Another general rule is that the larger the still the lighter the resulting whisky, and it is interesting to note that Irish pot stills have almost always been larger than those used in Scotland, perhaps because when large stills came into use, Ireland's distilleries were catering for cities - Dublin, Cork and Belfast. The largest pot still in the world, with a capacity of 31,648 gallons, is to be found at the Old Midleton Distillery in County Cork. By comparison the pot stills of the New Midleton Distillery each hold 16,500 gallons.
There is an old distiller's theory that the smaller the pot still, the finer the whisky, in much the same way that in cooking small boilings are usually considered to produce better flavour. It is hardly surprising that Scotland's smallest distillery, Edradour in Perthshire - with stills of 500-gallons' capacity - should make use of the old theory in its promotional material, and the company notes that 'Our copper stills are the smallest allowed under Excise regulations - any smaller, the theory goes, and they'd be hidden away in a hillside'.
A number of terms are widely applied to pot-still design configuration in Scotland, with Whisky: Technology, Production and Marketing listing 'Ball, Lantern, Plain, Onion and Straight'. According to the same source, 'The pot … can assume many shapes … - conical, onion, cylindro-conical, inverted cone, ball and lantern - provided that sufficient volume and surface area are maintained to ensure that the coils remain totally immersed at the end of the distillation'.
⇒Copper is universally used in the construction of pot stills as it has the best heat transference of any metal, and John Wilson records that at the Campbeltown distillery of Glen Scotia, 'the stills are left unpolished to keep them cooler'. (SD) Originally pot stills were heated by peat or coal, but today stills are heated by coke, gas or steam, the latter having been pioneered in the 1880s. Some distilleries, such as Glenfarclas on Speyside and Springbank in Campbeltown, have persisted with direct heating, however, believing that it 'seals in' the malt flavours, and in 1984 Glen Grant reverted to the use of coal- fired stills for a time. Internal steam-coil firing makes for more precise control of the distilling process and an even spread of heat, removing the possibilities of particles of malt burning on the bottom of the still and therefore the necessity of rummagers. It also reduces the chances of the wash boiling over. Modern stills have sighting windows so that boiling can easily be monitored, but in the past a large wooden ball would often be hung alongside a still and bounced off its side, so that the stillman could tell by the note produced what was happening within the vessel.
The term 'pot-still whisky' is now rarely encountered, though Daiches uses it, declaring that 'the whisky distilled from malted barley in the manner perfected in the Scottish Highlands in the 18th century and still produced in essentially the same manner - what we call Pot Still Highland Malt Scotch Whisky - has proved to be inimitable outside Scotland.' (SW1) Gunn employs the expression as a synonym for malt whisky which was current during the 1930s, 'some essential principle is retained that gives pot-still whisky its peculiar, desirable, and unmistakable flavour'. (W&S)
According to Jackson, 'The product of this distillation [of malt and unmalted barley] is known in Ireland simply as pot still whiskey, and that term is used very specifically in the industry and in labelling. (WGtW) Magee notes, however, that 'Irish pot still continues to be a highly favoured drink, but there is not so much of it around nowadays. The appellation has gradually disappeared from the labels of both the home and export products over the last few years'. (IW)
potable Fit for drinking, and more specifically liquor suitable for drinking. After the French potable, adapted from the Late Latin potabilis, drinkable, from potare, to drink. The first attestation occurs in 1572, 'The water there is altogyther potable', and with the sense of ⇒liquor in 1623, 'In a well-knit body, a poor parsnip will play his prize above their strong potabiles'. In Scotch Whisky: Questions and Answers, the Scotch Whisky Association notes, 'Spirits for human consumption, or potable spirits, are the distillates of alcoholic liquids ... '.
poteen A widely used anglicisation of the Irish poitín.
premium, super-premium In relation to whisky, the adjective premium is synonymous with the somewhat vague term ⇒de luxe, which it has largely superseded in the vocabulary of marketing. The Chivas Regal blend is now labelled as 'Premium Scotch Whisky'.
With regard to blends, a super-premium blend is more exclusive than a premium, with the implication of even greater age and/or a higher percentage of component malt whisky. However, the term may also be applied to notably old and/or rare single malts, with the website for the retailer Royal Mile Whiskies declaring 'Diageo's range of Super-Premium whiskies have been in stock at Royal Mile Whiskies for some time, but we had not yet team-tasted them as a set'. (www.royalmilewhiskies.com)
With the sense 'Of a commodity, service, etc.: superior in quality and therefore commanding a higher price', the OED dates first usage of premium, which it claims has US origins, to 1856 and Godey's Lady's Book. 'Front seats must have been at premium prices in 1831'.
prohibition The action of forbidding by or as by authority; an edict, decree, or order forbidding or debarring; a negative command. The word prohibition comes from the French prohibition, itself an adaptation of the Latin prohibitiōn-em, a noun of action from prohib- ĕre, to prohibit.
In the specific sense of the forbidding by law of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic drink, which is now most usually employed, prohibition is recorded in the United States in 1851, The state of Vermont has struggled arduously to arrive at the summit level of entire prohibition.' In 1869 the Prohibition Party was formed, with the aim of nominating and supporting only people pledged to vote for the abolition of the liquor trade. The term prohibitionist is first recorded in 1846, 'Prohibitionist, an advocate for prohibitory measures'. Colloquially prohibitionists were frequently known as 'drys', just as their opponents were labelled 'wets', and the two appellations are used by Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart: 'During the war, too, the teetotallers were well-organised and very active. The "wets" were apathetic'. (Sc)
'Prohibition' is now usually taken as being synonymous with that period from 1919 to 1933 when alcoholic drink was, in theory at least, banned in the United States, though it should be noted that prohibition is still in force in some American counties, mainly in the South. According to Lockhart, prohibition was 'the most puzzling episode in American history', and he observes that, 'The biggest blow to the Scottish distillers after the First World War was the introduction of total prohibition by the Government of the United States'. (Sc) A number of 'dry' states were already in existence, but complete prohibition was first introduced as a war measure in 1917, being authorised by the Eighteenth Amendment. After the war the National Prohibition Law became part of the American Constitution, and the Volstead Act laid down the measures for its enforcement. Writing of the national state of mind that accepted the introduction of prohibition with very little protest, Lockhart notes the 'wave of Spartan idealism' that accompanied American entry into the First World War. 'Alcohol was a menace to the American effort, and to be dry became the patriotic duty of American men and especially of American women who had not yet experienced the delights of cocktail orgies and chainsmoking'. (Sc) 'What was extraordinary', he suggests, 'was the fervour with which the American people accepted prohibition after the war. For total prohibition did not enter into full force until January, 1920, and at first it swept the country like a bestseller'. This mood was not to last, however, and illicit distillation of frequently very questionable ⇒moonshine and the illegal importation of ⇒the Real McCoy were soon occurring on a grand scale. In 1921 some 96,000 illicit stills were located by the authorities, and by 1930 that figure had increased to 282,000.
Lockhart spent some time in America during prohibition, and he comments, 'I have seen much drinking in many countries, but the United States of the "dry" period surpassed all that I had previously experienced or, indeed, that I could have imagined'. (Sc) Tales of alcoholic hardship do occur, however, WC Fields lamenting that 'once during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water'. In 1933 President Roosevelt repealed the Volstead Act, 'rightly interpreting public opinion', as Lockhart puts it. He considers that prohibition was ultimately not particularly damaging to the Scotch whisky industry, as previous markets were recaptured and expansion achieved due to the previously high reputation Scotch had enjoyed in the United States.
Another factor that led to increased sales of Scotch whisky after prohibition was the inability of the distillers of Irish whiskey to respond to the renewed demand for their product. If, as Morrice concludes, 'On balance, Prohibition was far from being a bad thing for the Scotch whisky industry', (SGtS), it was clearly something of a disaster for the Irish distillers. It was also a major contributory factor in the dramatic decline of the old Scottish 'whisky capital' of ⇒Campbeltown, whose products gained a reputation for poor quality and inconsistency due to excessive demand from the United States during the period of prohibition.
Prohibition inevitably conjures up American-derived images of bootleg whisky and Al-Capone-style gangster operations, but 'dryness' was not limited to America; British temperance activities led to a little-known period of prohibition in the far north of Scotland which lasted for 11 years longer than the 'experiment' in the United States. As the Caithness historian Iain Sutherland records in Vote No Licence, 'For a quarter of a century, between 28th May 1922 and 28th May 1947, there were no public houses or licensed grocers in Wick open for the sale of alcohol to the public. They had been closed as the result of an election which had been held on 10th December 1920, under the terms of the Temperance (Scotland) Act of 1913 ... '.
'Wick is the old herring capital of Scotland', notes Morrice 'and once had an appalling reputation for lawlessness due to the influx of transient workers from the Hebrides, intent on making a killing during the herring season'. (SGtS) As in the United States 'prohibition' was regularly used to describe the situation in Wick, appearing in the publicity material of both 'wets' and 'drys', and also as in the States, the fishing port was never actually 'dry', with alcohol still being legally obtainable from a number of premises with wholesale licences. Sutherland comments, 'Unfortunately for the prohibitionists the same effect which had been seen in America began to show itself in Wick after a short time. By 1922 doctors in Chicago were prescribing 200,000 gallons of spirit for medicinal purposes a year, and while Wick could not reach that level it was beginning to discover a variety of ailments which required treatment by alcohol'. (VNL)
Another inevitable outcome was the development of illicit drinking and illicit distillation, with at least two stills in operation. One, at Hill of Newton, was operated by Willag Thomson in conjunction with his uncle and cousin, and the trio even grew their own barley for the whiskey they produced. Sutherland notes:
The customers were uncritical of quality, although this varied considerably according to the brew and vintage, which was usually measured in days or weeks. Whisky is a naturally clear liquid and acquires its colour from the sherry casks in which it is stored. The organisation at the top of Newton Hill had difficulty in acquiring bottles, not to speak of sherry casks, and they gave the accepted colour to their product by singeing white sugar in a spoon over the fire till it turned a suitable brown and stirred this into their brew.
A number of what Sutherland terms ⇒shebeens sprang up around the town, and he writes 'the most daring of all operated in a restaurant, whose regulars knew that when the fancy silver teapot was in use, that its contents had been brewed some considerable time previously. And not in India or China either'. My own paternal grandfather, who grew up in Wick, recalled being puzzled at the incongruous sight of large, red-faced countrymen apparently taking tea in the Bridge Street premises.
proof As Daiches explains, 'One of the meanings of the word "proof " at least since the sixteenth century is "of tried strength or quality" and it is this meaning that is involved in the phrase "proof spirit", which simply means spirit of standard and approved strength'. (SW1) In the drink-related sense, proof is first attested in 1705: 'For Proof (of the brandy) there was a little Spanish soap clapt into it, and the Scum of the Soap passed on them for the Proof', though with the original meaning to which Daiches alludes a first use is recorded prior to 1225, ' Þet hit beo soð, lo her Þe preoue'. Proof comes from the Middle English preove, proeve, preve, after the Old French preuve, proeve, preve, proeuve. In Latin probāre, to prove.
The Customs and Excise Act of 1952 defined spirits of proof strength in the following terms: 'Spirits shall be deemed to be at proof if the volume of the ethyl alcohol contained therein made up to the volume of the spirits with distilled water has a weight equal to that of twelve-thirteenths of a volume of distilled water equal to the volume of the spirits, the volume of each liquid being computed at fifty-one degrees Fahrenheit'. Proof spirit was, therefore, as the Scotch Whisky Association notes, 'a mixture of spirit and water of a strength of 57.1% of spirit by volume and 42.9% of water'. (SWQ&A) 'Proof strength was measured in degrees', writes Morrice, 'starting with proof itself at 100°. Scotch whisky has usually been sold in Britain at 30° under proof, i.e. 70° proof, but it is sometimes found at 75° and 100° proof . (SGtS)
Until January 1980 the strength of spirits in Britain was measured by proof strength, using the hydrometer developed by Bartholomew Sikes from models first used in the 1740s. The Sikes apparatus was officially adopted by the 1818 Hydrometer Act, though as Marshall Robb explains, 'In ancient times an idea of the strength of spirits was obtained by several dry rough methods. The spirit was shaken in a bottle and a note taken of the time required for the disappearance of the "bead" or small bubble; the alcohol was ignited and the amount which burnt away was noted. Gunpowder was damped with the spirit and then a light was applied to see if it still ignited'. (SW3) As Morrice points out, 'The assessment of duty has for long been based on alcoholic strength, and the accurate measuring of this has always been an obsession of the exciseman'. (SGtS) Since 1980 the notion of proof strength has not been officially recognised in Britain, having been replaced by a new method of measurement recommended by the International Organisation of Legal Metrology and adopted throughout the European Community. As the Scotch Whisky Association explains, 'The OIML system measures alcoholic strength as a percentage of alcohol by volume at a temperature of 20°C. It replaced the Sikes system of measuring the proof strength of spirits, which had been used in Britain for over 160 years'. (SWQ&A) As a result, the old, familiar British whisky bottle labelling of 70° proof gave way to the information that the spirit was '40% Vol'. Neil Wilson notes that, 'In the United States a proof system is still operated whereby 100° American Proof equates to 50% alcoholic volume'. (S&W)
Jackson points out that 'All spirits are distilled at a higher alcohol content than makes for a pleasant drink. In order that the character of the original material be retained, the law insists that Scotch whisky be distilled at a percentage of alcohol by volume that is clearly under 95 (to ensure this 94.8 is specified) In practice, malts come off the still in the range of 75-60'. (MWC) At the opposite end of the strength spectrum there was a vogue for low-priced, low-strength Scotch whisky during the 1980s, but in 1989 EC legislation was introduced prohibiting the sale of whiskies below 40% vol. in order to protect the reputation and integrity of the product.
Most whisky is reduced in strength by the addition of water to 40% or 43% before bottling, but Jackson notes that, 'Single malts sold at "cask strength" range in alcohol content from just under 60 to just over 50'. (ibid.) The Elgin firm of Gordon & MacPhail, which bottles a range of malts at cask strength, note in their Corporate Brochure that, 'Before the First World War all whisky was bottled straight from the cask - i.e. at about 57% alcohol by volume (100° proof) Then in 1916, as a wartime measure, it was ordained that the strength be reduced to 30%. A bitter fight ensued and a compromise was reached at 40 (70° proof), which has remained the norm ever since.'
punch, whisky As Daiches explains, 'When Lowlanders drank whisky in the eighteenth century they usually made it into toddy (whisky, hot water and sugar) or punch (whisky, hot water, sugar and lemon'). (WD) The earliest reference to punch made with whisky occurs in Captain Edward Burl's Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland to His Friend in London (1754), 'When they chuse to qualify it for Punch they sometimes mix it with Water and Honey, or with Milk and Honey.' The first attestation of the term 'whisky punch' is in Burns' poem 'Scotch Drink' (1785). In Glasgow rum punch was popular as a result of the city's trade with the West Indies, but in Edinburgh whisky was almost always the spirit used. Daiches - in a BBC Radio 4 broadcast of January 1981 - commented that whisky punch was 'A terrible waste of good whisky'. He observed that 'The last decadent remnant of the whisky punch habit is whisky and lemonade', noting that the provision of a bottle of lemonade on bar counters is 'A strange aberration found only in Scotland'.
Theodora Fitzgibbon gives recipes for both hot and cold whisky punch. (MSW) The heated version involves straining hot tea over sugar and lemon and adding a bottle of whisky; the resultant mixture is lit and served in punch glasses. Cold whisky punch consists of pouring boiling water over squeezed lemons and sugar. Once cold this is strained and a bottle of whisky is added. The DoD offers a recipe for whisky punch ⇒cocktail, and specifies two measures of whisky to one of rum, along with lemon juice, sugar, and a dash of Angostura. The mixture is served on ice with a dash of soda water and a slice of orange soaked in Curaçao.
With the sense of a drink usually composed of wine or spirits mixed with hot water, flavoured with sugar, lemon, and spice or ⇒cordial, punch is first attested in 1632, 'I hope you will keep a good house together and drincke punch by no allowanc'. It has been suggested that it derives from the Marãthi and Hindi word for five - pãnch - as it was originally made from five ingredients. However, as Dunkling points out, 'The Oxford English Dictionary long ago pointed out that this was unlikely on phonetic grounds. There is also no evidence that punch was originally made from five ingredients. The word is more likely to be an abbreviation of "puncheon", a kind of large cask'. (GDC)
puncheon A large ⇒cask, usually with a specific capacity which differed according to commodities. As a liquid measure it varied from 72 gallons for beer to 120 gallons for whisky. The first attestation occurs in 1479, 'Gevin ... to John of Tyre to by a pwncion of wyne'. Puncheon has its origins in the 13th-century Old French word ponçon, and according to Russell Sharp the puncheon and the dump puncheon, with respective capacities of 558 litres and 463 litres, are two of the five 'main types of cask used in Scotland'. (SoS)
purifier The OED defines purifier as 'An apparatus for removing impurities from a substance; spec. (a) an apparatus in which a gas or other fluid is purified by passing it over a substance which absorbs impurities'. First usage dates from 1834, when Encyclopaedia Britannica X records, '(Gas-light) A series of purifiers'.
In whisky-related terms, a purifier is a piece of equipment employed in conjunction with the ⇒lyne arm or ⇒lye pipe which collects some of the heavier alcohols produced during ⇒distillation and directs them back into the still.
In Ardbeg: A Peaty Provenance former Ardbeg Distillery manager Stuart Thomson is quoted as saying, 'The lighter alcohols travel along the top of the lyne arm, while the heavier ones go along the bottom of the arm and are captured in the pot of the purifier. With the purifier, the whisky is nearly triple-distilled and this makes the spirit more delicate'. In the same source Glenmorangie Ltd's Head of Distilling and Whisky Creation Dr Bill Lumsden notes, 'The purifier is undoubtedly what gives Ardbeg its fruity, floral sweetness, and gives complexity to the spirit'.