Whiskey is a spirit made from the fermented mash of grain. Everything else, from regions to additives to oak aging, can be debated. It is important to specify this before looking back in history to find the first mention of whiskey. And when we do, we find it in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, 1494.

The exact line was “Eight bolls of malt to Friar John Cor wherewith to make aqua vitae.” This was a request on behalf of King James IV to make whiskey for him. The word “malt” here refers to malted barley, which is barley that is sprouted to release enzymes within the grain that break down its starches into sugar. The sugar is then fermented, and “aqua vitae” is an old name for the distillate of that fermented liquid. It means water of life (as we have discovered, it’s a common phrase all across the world and throughout history).

But there is a little issue here. We are trying to find out who invented whiskey, not who talked about it first. The wording of the Exchequer Rolls implies that grain aqua vitae was a market good at that point. It might not have been common but at least people knew what it was. Today, historians understand that distillation had been happening in Europe for hundreds of years before then, but we don’t know exactly when alcohol started being distilled, let alone whiskey.

We don’t have written documentation from Ireland about aqua vitae explicitly from grain prior to the Exchequer Rolls. But there is a mention of aqua vitae in the Annals of Clonmacnoise in 1405, and it is probable that the base ingredient was a grain (likely oats). Moreover, the Scottish Celtic term, uisge beatha, comes from the Old Irish, uisce bethu. Etymologists suspect that it was a loan-translation of the French, eau de vie. And guess what? They all mean the same as aqua vitae. Whiskey was not made in France then, but it was made in Ireland. And descriptions of whiskey in the centuries that followed suggests that many thought it was particular to the Irish.

So, it makes a lot of sense to infer that the first producers of whiskey were Irish and that they spread it to the rest of the British Isles, including Scotland.

Wait, wait. That can’t be it, right? Because “a spirit made from the fermented mash of grain” was made in eastern Europe way before the 1400s. Russians and Pols were taught the art of alcohol distillation by Arabic scholars in as early as the 8th century. It doesn’t matter when the Irish started. They can’t beat that.

But the spirit they were making in eastern Europe was the predecessor of vodka, not whiskey. The word “whiskey” is an Anglicization of uisge beatha. That's gaelic, not slavic. Maybe we should not solely be reliant on definitions, and look at the way it fits within a family tree. If we do that, then we should say that it was the Irish or Scottish who invented whiskey, since everything we call “whiskey” (Ireland, USA) or “whisky” (Scotland, Canada, Japan) today traces its roots back to them. I lean towards Ireland as the original source, and so do most professionals in the spirits industry. But as I said before, it is unclear because so much evidence is missing.

Please consider reading my article on vodka (coming soon) if I sparked your curiosity by mentioning it, or the article on how to taste whiskey. My purpose for writing these is to give you free insight into the world of booze. So, I’ve made information available to you that I had to spend quite a lot of resources and time acquiring.

On behalf of Distillare, I hope it benefits you as a consumer of uisge beatha.

Art generated by AI

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