Drinkers at a counter. Illustration for La Case de l'Oncle Tome • ISTOCK If criticism of British gastronomy has become an international sport, no one dares to doubt their taste for good drink. The Englishman Saint Boniface already condemned in the VIII th century the weakness of many islanders for spirits, a pleasure or vice to which "neither the Franks, nor the Gauls, nor the Lombards, nor the Romans, nor the Greeks" indulged. Over time, gourmets around the world have benefited from this British bent:without the intercession of the Empire, the two national drinks, English gin and Scotch whisky, would certainly not enjoy their current international fame. /P> Faced with the hundreds of millions of cases sold each year, it is clear that whiskey has had a happy destiny. The variety of this alcohol seems to have ensured its durability. A real tour de force for a drink that theoretically boils down to a very simple formula:an alcohol made by distilling fermented cereals, then aged in wooden barrels, which is basically nothing more than a distilled beer. If the mere mention of whiskey is enough to transport us to Scotland, it is not only because "its inhabitants seem to have been the first to make it", as the writer Kevin R. Kosar affirms, but also because the Scottish terroir has enriched this simple beer with the different elements (earth, water, fire and air) which have allowed it to rise to the rank of drink of excellence, fulfilling the most demanding criteria of sophistication. Origins still discussed There are many theories about the origins of whisky. Some attribute its invention to the Egyptians, masters in the art of beer; others, on the contrary, place its birth in Greek stills, since Aristotle's contemporaries were already producing eau-de-vie. In the Middle Ages, sages and alchemists, from Raymond Lully to Arnaud de Villeneuve, perhaps imported it from the Arab world. Anyway, its historical traces before 1500 are rare and confused, and this original whiskey must have hardly resembled the one we know today. In the 15th th century dates back to the first occurrence of the Gaelic expression uisge-beatha , or “eau-de-vie”, which we do not know whether it referred to brandy or to the generic notion of “spirits”. The first reference to whiskey as we know it today, hitherto reserved for monks, apothecaries and peasants, comes from a mid-eighteenth th Irish journal century. However, nothing excludes the possibility that the Scottish practice of distillation is much older and dates back to at least around 1400. Whether or not it differs from that of today, whiskey has always exerted such an economic influence that in 1506 royal power granted a monopoly on it to the Brotherhood of Barber-Surgeons of Edinburgh, thus inaugurating the perennial tradition of conferring therapeutic virtues on this alcohol. Over time, however, its production came under increasing control:in times of famine, the ability to distill the grain rather than consume it turned the aging of whiskey into a luxury only nobles could afford. Nothing, despite everything, succeeded in undermining this affection common to Scots of all ages, from “toothless children […] to toothless old people”, according to one traveller. The main and eternal courtier of whiskey remained despite everything the tax authorities, which in 1644 taxed the production and aging of “eau-de-vie”. England took advantage of its political union with Scotland, materialized by the creation of the United Kingdom, to finance the wars in which it embarked by taxing not only whiskey, but also cereals, stills, etc. If the prohibition in 1781 of private distillation was rectified by a law of 1816 which reduced the tax burden, heavy penalties were decreed against consumption and clandestine production. It was not until 1983 that the presence in distilleries of a British official responsible for controlling production ceased to be compulsory. The chic drink of Edward VII These shackles, however, proved counterproductive, sharpening the ingenuity of the Scots in concealing the stills and casks. Even the most wary of officials would not have suspected the presence of whiskey in barrels labeled “sheep sanitizer”. The ban on its production also exacerbated smuggling:the whiskey with which King George IV toasted, while passing through Scotland in 1822, was paradoxically the result of clandestine trade. It was from this moment that the history of whiskey took a happy turn. It acquired a reputation diametrically opposed to the bad reputation of gin, held responsible for all sorts of agitations attributed to the working classes of 18th century England. century. Whiskey, on the other hand, benefited from the support of the Crown. Under the influence of George IV and especially Queen Victoria, Scotland became a fashionable holiday destination:romanticism raved about the medieval fictions of Sir Walter Scott, royalty had their own tartans made, and the Balmoral Castle became one of the favorite residences of Queen Victoria, who never traveled without a bottle of whisky. Curiously, the one who tried to prevent alcoholism by supporting temperance societies did not hesitate to grant the title of royal purveyor to the Lochnagar distillery. If whiskey won the title of fashionable alcohol in the 19th century, it was mainly after the Second World War that this typically Scottish drink spread throughout the world. The British Empire then transported whiskey to all continents. At the end of the 19 th century, the phylloxera epidemic, which sank the brandy market, favored the prodigious rise of its rival. At the dawn of the XX th century, whiskey had already become the elegant drink of the gentleman, whose health it spared by affecting "neither the head nor the liver", as the advertisements of the time claimed. Edward VII's fondness for the drink contributed to the prestige of whisky:when this dandy king began to dilute it in water, many of his subjects in turn adopted this chic habit. Always capable of reinventing itself, “scotch” survived the two world wars, when no drop had been produced in 1943. It managed to conquer new markets by offering, for example, different whiskey creams or by introducing the single malt from the 1970s and 1980s, in a context where blended malt dominated . A bottle of the drink that "makes the Scot happy", according to writer James Boswell, can now be sold at auction for hundreds of thousands of euros. Consumers around the world can quench their thirst by drinking whiskeys from different regions of Scotland (Highlands, Lowlands, Speyside, Islay or Campbeltown), with an iodized or mineral taste, golden or mahogany nuances, etc. As the historian David Daiches pointed out, these infinite variations have one thing in common:that of raising a toast to civilization, paying homage to the continuity of culture and conveying the manifesto of men determined to fully enjoy their senses. Find out more Practical guide, Whiskey is not rocket science, M. Guidot, Marabout, 2016. The reign of 'dry law' in Scotland For a long time, whiskey production and consumption sounded like a “persecuted religion” in Scotland. British Crown tax collectors scoured villages to collect taxes and track down clandestine stills. Among them was Robert Burns, the Scottish poet who devoted his days to pursuing clandestine distillation and his nights to composing verses in honor of his muse, the “good old Scottish drink”. Other officials of the administration were hated by Scots, such as Malcolm Gillespie:“He cared neither for God nor for men, and was said to be selfish and rough with women, but he loved his dog passionately. Malcolm Gillespie came close to death several times in confrontation with traffickers.
