Scotch

Friar John Cor and the malt

The oldest written mention of Scottish distilling is an Exchequer Roll entry. It orders eight bolls of malt to Friar John Cor, by order of the King, to make aqua vitae. That is enough malt for roughly 1,500 bottles, which suggests the craft was already well established.

A still in Aberdeen

A still appears in the Aberdeen council registers, in the estate of Sir Andrew Gray, as a stellatour for aquavite and rose water. It is the first known reference to the apparatus. Both liquids are named together, so the same vessel served each.

The first excise on spirit

The Parliament of Scotland imposed its first excise duty on spirit, at 2s 8d per Scots pint. Illicit distilling grew in answer, and the habit of hiding a still from the gauger would last for nearly two centuries. The tax is where the long quarrel between distillers and the Crown began.

The malt tax riots

A new malt tax across Great Britain angered Scots who saw beer prices rise. Riots began in Hamilton on 23 June 1725 and spread, and Glasgow was the fiercest. A crowd drove out the soldiers and wrecked the house of Daniel Campbell, who had voted for the tax.

A thousand illegal stills

Unlicensed distilling was widespread in the Highlands from the 1760s to the 1830s. In 1782 alone, more than 1,000 illegal stills were seized. The figure shows how much spirit was made outside the law, and how ordinary that work had become.

Magnus Eunson founds Highland Park

Magnus Eunson founded Highland Park at Kirkwall in 1798. He was a butcher and church officer by day and an illicit distiller and smuggler by night. The distillery gained an official licence in 1826. Its name comes from a local place called High Park.

The Excise Act opens the door

The Excise Act 1823 eased the rules for licensed distillers and pressed harder on illegal ones. Duty paid whisky rose from 2,232,000 gallons in 1823 to 4,350,000 gallons in 1824. Much of what had been made in hiding came into the open.

George Smith takes a licence

George Smith took the first licence in the Livet valley under the new act, and The Glenlivet dates from 1824. King George IV is reported to have asked for Glenlivet whisky on his visit to Scotland in 1822. A licence turned a smuggler's glen into a brand.

Aeneas Coffey patents his still

Aeneas Coffey patented his refined column still in 1830. It distils continuously and gives a lighter, higher strength spirit than a pot still. Irish distillers largely rejected it, while Scottish and English producers adopted it, and grain whisky followed. The design still carries his name.

Usher blends grain with malt

From the 1860s Andrew Usher pioneered blended whisky, combining grain and malt whiskies. His Old Vatted Glenlivet was registered as a trademark in 1879. By the 1880s it held just over 12 percent Glenlivet and about two thirds Caledonian grain whisky.

Walker's first commercial blend

In 1865 Alexander Walker made the first commercial blend of Johnnie Walker and named it Old Highland Whisky. The family business began as a Kilmarnock grocery in 1820, and the square bottle of 1860 let more bottles fit a crate with fewer breakages.

Phylloxera and the whisky boom

French vineyards were ravaged by phylloxera in the 1880s, and wine and brandy grew scarce. Drinkers turned to whisky, and nearly 40 new distilleries opened by the 1890s. A louse on a French root helped fill the warehouses of Scotland.

Only one is The Glenlivet

By the middle of the nineteenth century many distilleries carried Glenlivet in their names. A High Court ruling in 1884 gave the Smith family sole use of the definite article, The Glenlivet, for whisky from their distillery. The valley's name was shared, but the article was not.

Christmas Day at Glenfiddich

William Grant built Glenfiddich at Dufftown in 1886, and the first spirit ran from its stills on Christmas Day 1887. The family still runs it, now in its fifth generation of management. Dufftown says Rome was built on seven hills and Dufftown stands on seven stills.

The Pattison crash

The Pattison brothers, Edinburgh blenders, rose in a speculative boom and then failed. Their company collapsed in December 1898, undone by fraud and heavy borrowing. The crash brought closures across the industry and taught the trade how quickly a boom could turn.

The Royal Commission rules

A Royal Commission on Whisky and other Potable Spirits was appointed in 1906 and reported in 1909. Its findings were a victory for the grain distillers and blenders. Blended whisky kept the name, and the blenders kept their market. An earlier London police court ruling in 1905 had gone against them.

Minimum maturation arrives

The Immature Spirits Act of 1915 set a minimum maturation period, at first two years. A 40 percent minimum strength followed in 1917. These wartime rules started a line of law that today asks for three years in oak and 40 percent.

From 159 distilleries to 15

Around 1900 there were 159 distilleries working in the boom years. By 1933 only 15 had survived. The First World War, United States Prohibition and the Great Depression each took a share of them. A count that falls so far is a quiet kind of ruin.

Glenfiddich sells single malt

In 1963 Glenfiddich introduced single malt as a premium brand in its own right. The modern single malt category grew from that move. It now sells in 180 countries and accounts for roughly 35 percent of single malt sales, by one count.

Port Ellen falls silent

After the boom of the 1970s, distilleries cut production by a third from 1981. Closures included Brora, Banff, Millburn and Port Ellen. Port Ellen shut in 1983 and its stills were destroyed, though its maltings went on supplying every Islay distillery.

Ardbeg lights its stills again

Ardbeg, on the south coast of Islay, stopped production in 1981. Glenmorangie bought and reopened it, with limited production resuming on 25 June 1997 and full production in 1998. A coast of closed stills began to smoke again, sixteen years after the last run.

The Scotch Whisky Regulations

The Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009 replaced the 1988 Act and widened the rules to cover labelling, packaging and advertising. They fix five categories, three years in oak casks of no more than 700 litres, a 40 percent minimum strength, and only water and plain caramel as additions.

Speyside becomes a region

Speyside has been officially recognised as a region distinct from the Highlands since 2014. It holds around 50 distilleries, the largest concentration in Scotland. The five protected regions are now Speyside, Highlands, Lowlands, Campbeltown and Islay. Bottles can now name the valley and not only the Highlands.

Port Ellen reopens

Diageo reopened Port Ellen on 19 March 2024, four decades after it closed. The revival cost 185 million pounds against the 35 million first announced in 2017, and new stills copy the originals. The first release, in 2025, was limited to 150 bottles.

Amrut reaches Glasgow

On 24 August 2004 Amrut Single Malt became the first Indian whisky released in the United Kingdom, at a launch event at Cafe India in Glasgow. The Bangalore firm dated from 1948 and had distilled malt since 1982. Its name comes from the Sanskrit golden pot of the elixir of life.

Fusion ranks third

In 2010 Jim Murray ranked Amrut Fusion third among some 4,000 whiskies he had tasted, with 97 points. The malt blends Indian unpeated barley with Scottish peated barley. Amrut's master blender says one year of maturation in India equals three in Scotland. Heat is the reason.

Paul John goes to London

Paul John Single Cask 161 was launched in London on 4 October 2012, the first bottling of the Goa brand abroad. John Distilleries had made blended whisky since 1996. Bold, Brilliance and Edited followed in May 2013, with Bold the peated bottling among them.

Mithuna in the Whisky Bible

Jim Murray's Whisky Bible 2021, announced on 16 September 2020, gave Paul John Mithuna 97 points and called it the world's third finest whisky. It was also named Asian Whisky of the Year. Mithuna belongs to the brand's Zodiac series, and the bottle took no first place overall.

Indri takes Best in Show

The Indri Diwali Collector's Edition won Best in Show Double Gold at the Whiskies of the World Awards 2023. The Haryana brand, launched for export markets in 2021 by the Piccadily group, had already won Best Indian Single Malt for its Trini at the World Whiskies Awards 2022.