The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails Definition of whisky, scotch.

whisky, scotch. The current definition of scotch whisky is provided by the Scotch Whisky Regulations passed by the British Government in 2009:

To be labeled “scotch whisky” the spirit must be:

a. Produced at a distillery in Scotland from water and malted barley (to which only the whole grains of other cereals may be added), all of which have been: (i) processed at that distillery into a mash; (ii) converted to a fermentable substrate only by endogenous (i.e., not added) enzyme systems; (iii) fermented only by the addition of yeast

c. Matured in an excise warehouse in Scotland in oak casks of a capacity not exceeding 700 liters, the period of that maturation being no less than three years

d. In retention of the color, aroma, and taste derived from the raw materials used in, and the method of, its production and maturation

e. Free from the addition of any substance other than water and spirit caramel

f. Bottled at a minimum of 40 percent alcohol by volume

The first written reference in Scotland to distilling from malt comes from an exchequer roll in 1494, although it is likely that aqua vitae (uisge beatha in Scots Gaelic, from which the word “whisky” derives) was being made here at least by 1300, for medicinal purposes by monks, physicians, and apothecaries. See whisky. There is evidence for the convivial use of aqua vitae from at least the mid-sixteenth century: an act of Parliament in 1579 limited “brewing and stelling [distilling]” to “Gentlemen for their own use” in expectation of a poor harvest, on account of there being “ane greit quantitie of malt consumit in the haill partis of this realm be making of aqua vitae.”

In 1609 the statutes of Iona forbade the import of wines and spirits by the Western Isles, on account of the people’s “inordinate love of strong wines and aquavite.” Private distilling for domestic consumption was allowed, and this remained the case until 1781, by which time the first industrial-scale distilleries were operating, taking advantage of the increased amount of cereals now available owing to improved farming methods.

This new ban on private distilling inevitably led to a massive increase in illicit distilling and smuggling, which reached epic proportions after the conclusion of the Napoleonic War in 1815. Anarchy was averted by the passing of the Excise Act 1823, which encouraged smugglers to take out licenses and laid the foundations of the modern whisky industry. See excise, taxes, and distillation.

By this time two kinds of whisky were being made in Scotland: malt whisky from malted barley and grain whisky from mixed grains. The latter was made in the Lowlands, where there was more grain available, the former in the Highlands, where barley was the traditional “drink crop.” The large-scale production of grain whisky was given a boost by the invention of continuous stills by Robert Stein (1828) and Aeneas Coffey (1830). See Coffey, Aeneas; and still, continuous. The wide adoption of Coffey’s still (the simpler and more effective of the two) for making mixed-grain whisky saw Scotland producing vast amounts of a product that was higher strength, purer (and thus blander), and much cheaper to make than the traditional pot-stilled malt whisky. Spirits merchants soon began to blend it with malt whiskies in order to produce a product with a broad appeal and a consistent flavor, batch by batch. See blending and Johnnie Walker.

Blended scotch whisky became the drink of choice of the English middle classes during the 1880s and 1890s and from this base spread around the British Empire. Very little malt whisky was drunk outside Scotland—almost all of it went for blending.

The boom of the 1890s turned dramatically to bust in 1900: production levels were massively out of balance with sales, Scotch was no longer so fashionable, and the UK economy went into recession. To compound matters further, “the People’s Budget” of 1908 increased duty on spirits by one-third: domestic consumption waned, and exports became more important.

Then came World War I, during which the government banned malt whisky distilling in order to preserve barley, reduced the strength at which whisky could be sold to 40 percent ABV, and banned the sale of whisky under three years old. Duty was doubled in 1918, and exports were forbidden for a year.

When Prohibition was introduced in the United States in 1920, the scotch whisky industry’s prospects looked grim. In fact, America’s taste for scotch was undiminished, and distillers happily shipped ever-growing quantities of whisky to neighboring territories such as the Bahamas, Canada, and Mexico, from which it was bootlegged into the States. By the time Prohibition was repealed in 1933, scotch was the drink of choice, and whisky companies were quick to appoint legal distributors, many of whom had formerly been bootleggers. By the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the United States was scotch whisky’s leading export market.

In the home market, grain distilling ceased in 1941 owing to a shortage of cereals, and malt distilling followed in 1943–1944. By 1943 the prewar price of a bottle had been doubled by duty increases; sales in the home market were put on quota—three-quarters of the whisky released had to be sold in export markets, particularly the United States—and barley for distilling continued to be rationed until 1950.

Until the early 1960s mature whisky was in chronically short supply, yet demand for scotch had never been greater. To meet the demand, many distilleries were increased in size, long-closed plants were re-commissioned, and new distilleries were built. During the decade the industry’s capacity was doubled, and this continued into the 1970s: stocks of whisky in bond reached unprecedented levels, rising from 2.2 million liters in 1965 to 4.5 billion liters in 1975.

Then came a severe slump, prompted by the oil crisis and the effects of the Vietnam War. To make matters worse, scotch was no longer as fashionable as it had been during the past two decades: many consumers were switching to vodka, white rum, or wine. During 1981 the world economy slipped rapidly into recession, and unemployment rose alarmingly throughout the Western world. Blending houses cut their spirit orders, and thirty distilleries closed between 1980 and 1985, ensuring by the end of the decade that the balance of production capacity with demand was restored.

One of the side effects of the economic downturn in the mid-1970s was an increase in the number of malts being bottled by their owners as singles. William Grant & Sons had blazed the trail in this regard, promoting Glenfiddich as a “pure malt” from the early 1960s. By 1970, around thirty single malts were available, mostly from independent bottlers in small quantities. See Glenfiddich. By 1980 the number of available expressions had doubled, and this continued during the 1990s and beyond. Currently, over five hundred expressions are released each year, including some off the most highly prized bottlings on the market. See Macallan.

The demand for blended scotch also began to increase during the late 1990s and early twenty-first century, with new markets emerging, particularly in Asia and South America, and since 2004 there has been a boom in production capacity not seen since the 1890s, with twenty-four new distilleries being commissioned, a further forty proposed or under construction, and many existing distilleries being expanded. Already production capacity has been increased by about one-third. At the same time, the steady popularity of Scottish single-malt whiskies has inspired a growing boom in malt-whisky distilling around the world, with scotch-style malts from places such as Australia, India, Sweden, France, Austria, and Taiwan stepping up to join the already-established ones from Japan and India as pillars of a growing category. See India and Central Asia and whisky, Japanese.

whisky, scotch.

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