Saturday 19 March 2011

"MacLean's Miscellany of Whisky" by Charles MacLean.

This quirky little book chronicles the authors love affair with whisky by providing essays, facts, snippets of doggerel (which Scots call poetry) and pictures. I learnt the author's views about which part of the process produces the taste (not the water, not the malting, not the peatfires, not the distilling but the years of maturing in second hand oak barrels that once contained bourbon, sherry, or wine). I learned the history of creating the famous brands and the way that the early advertisers tried to convince the drinking public that this disgusting potion was not the drink of low moonshiners but something for lairds by appealing to tradition and snobbishness. I discovered that whisky was once sold on draught from casks or stone jugs and only latterly bottled; the original bottles being owned by the customer and branded with a big circular seal to show the laird's coat of arms. I also learned some of the many names Scots give drunkenness.

Some of MacLean's learning seems suspect. He cheerfully derives the Scots word 'skelped' meaning both drunk and a blow to the head, from the Gaelic sgailc, a morning dram, although it almost certainly comes from 'scalped'. And on page 162 is something written by Robert Lindesay of Pitscottie in 1528/9 whilst on page 163 he tells us that the author was born in 1530.

However, the information about viscimetry, the way two liquids swhorl together as they mix, was fascinating as was the quote for Blake, Thro' a Glass Darkly.

March 2011; 241 pages

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