I’m in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge for the month of April. I need your help! To meet this challenge, I’ll be doing one post a day, working through the alphabet.
Your job is to comment and keep me motivated! Let me know you’re out there and following along. Can she make it? Will she? Of course she will! With you as my cheering section, I won’t be stumped by J or Q or even X.
So without further ado, here is today’s post.
U is for uisge beatha. Gaelic for water of life. Committed single-malt drinkers consider it to be nothing less than that. According to the Scotch Whisky Association:
“The earliest documented record of distillation in Scotland occurred as long ago as 1494, as documented in the Exchequer Rolls, which were tax records of this time, The quote above records “Eight bolls of malt to Friar John Cor wherewith to make aqua vitae”. This was equivalent to about 1,500 bottles, which suggests that distillation was well-established by the late fifteenth century.“
The Scotch Whisky Regulations of 2009 control the production, labelling, packaging, and advertising standards for Scotch whisky in the United Kingdom. Among many detailed and specific regulations for the process, strength, color and so forth, it defines “Scotch whisky” as whisky that is distilled in Scotland of water and malted barley and other whole grains. It must mature in oak barrels a minimum of three years.
If you’re just getting started with single-malts, this chart, from Malts.com, is a fabulous visual aid to help you choose a whisky to taste and to find your favorites. It is not a complete list of all the single-malts available from Scotland, but it’s a good place to start.
Interested in finding the other nearly 2000 blogs participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge? Click on the title, then scroll down to find the sign-up list.
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