Pure malt whisky is, and has been, made almost exclusively in Scotland. In Ireland they use about one-third of malt to two-thirds of oats and maize. In England they make whisky of pretty nearly everything, including German spirit, petroleum, and old boots; whilst in gallant little Wales—well the only acknowledged Welsh whisky I have tasted was excellent in quality, and apparently made from pure malt. Distilling, as a trade, commenced in England during the Tudor period, and from the reputation bluff King Hal bore for feathering his nest, it is probable that the industry was fully taxed. In 1579 Scotch distilleries were taxed for the first time. In Ireland as far back as the eleventh century the natives made _uisge beatha_—now called potheen—without interference from landlord or gauger, and continued at it until the sixteenth century, when licenses were enforced in the cases of _all but the gentry_, and to run an illicit still was {80} punishable with death and dismemberment. But they ran ’em just the same; for in those days an Irishman was never really happy unless he were drinking, fighting, or being sentenced to death. But whether it was English, Scotch, Welsh, or Irish whisky, or French brandy, or Dutch gin, smuggling and illicit distilling were rampant through the centuries, and the Inland Revenue officer was no more respected or worshipped than at the present day. Still there has not been much blood shed over those differences of opinion; except in Western Pennsylvania at the close of the last century—a period when the greater part of the universe was fighting about something—when it took 15,000 soldiers from Washington to quell a riot amongst a populace discontented with the Excise regulations. Blending and diluting whiskies are for the most part done in the bonded warehouses. “All commercial spirit,” says an authority on the subject, “however pure, contains a small proportion of impurities” (which sounds Irish) “or by-products of distillation known as fusel-oil.” It will relieve the minds of some to know that fusel-oil is merely a by-product of distillation, and not the “low-flash” stuff which causes the accidents with the cheap lamps. It used to be thought that during the “maturing,” or “ageing,” of whisky the constituents of fusel-oil underwent decomposition; but my good friend Doctor James Bell, C.B., the chief Government analyst at Somerset House (he retired some three years ago), utterly refuted this theory by analysis. Whisky is, like brandy, naturally white, and {81} takes its trade colour, and, to a certain extent, flavour, from the sherry-casks in which it is matured. It is also coloured by the direct addition of caramel (burnt sugar), or a maturing wine.