Whisky, Whiskey, Whatever

There's a band in town that calls themselves The Whiskey Thieves, of which friend and fellow columnist JMB has written about numerous times in his Sonoma Valley Music Scene section of our local paper. Thinking he just had a little typo a few weeks ago, I let him know that there was no "e" in whisky. It always drives me crazy to see a word spelled wrong. Well, today Diva Lora (Lala) and I had one of our traditional Diva Picnic in the Plaza lunches, in which our favorite whisky was consumed incognito. When I returned to the office, I had to send an e-mail to Mr. JMB, telling him that I was in no condition to give him feedback on our company website (he is also our new webmaster). A few minutes later I got a return e-mail from him, with a considerate little link to Wikipedia's whisky page, where I learned something about my booze of choice.

The word "whisky" is from the Gaelic word, "uisce" which means "water of life". Indeed.

Traditionally, if whisky is made in Scotland, Canada or Japan, it is spelled without the "e". Whiskey spelled with an "e" refers to that which is made in Ireland. A long time ago, whisky from Dublin was THE shit, so to differentiate it from the rest of the world, they added the cute little "e".
The official ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms)(I love that those 3 things are linked together) spelling in the US is without the "e", but for some reason, most US distilleries use the Irish spelling anyway.
I also learned that "malted barley" refers to barley that has started to germinate but was quickly dried before it could grow more, and that the word "Mod" when used in "Royal National Mod", aka the Whisky Olympics, refers to a festival of Scottish Gaelic song, arts and culture that is held every October in Scotland.

It's been an interesting day today.