It would be appropriate for a people-based profile of whisky to begin by naming the first whisky maker. Sadly, no-one knows who he was. In fact, no-one knows who the first distiller was. It is clear that from AD 4 onwards, alchemists in China, India, Arabia, Egypt and Greece were using distillation to make turpentine, medicines, makeup (al-kohl, our alcohol) and perfumes, but there is no evidence that they adapted brewing techniques to make whisky.
How the Irish and Scots got in on the act is equally mysterious. The Celts may have known about distillation, but apart from a couple of enigmatic references in the 6th century AD there’s no proof. What is agreed is that distillation arrived in Scotland with the monks of the Celtic Church, suggesting that distillation was already taking place in Ireland – perhaps Irish monks had encountered the art in Sicily or Andalucia, or through their ancient trading links with the Phoenicians.
By the time Friar John Cor bought his famous eight bolls of malt in 1495 – the first record of whisky making in Scotland -distillation was widely practised across Europe. It is hardly surprising that the first distillers...
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