"Of the history, geography, literature, philosophy, morals, use and abuse, praise and scorn of whisky volumes might be written. They will not be written by me. Yet it is opportune that a voice be raised in defence of this great, potent, and princely drink where so many speak to slight and defame, and where so many glasses are emptied foolishly and irreverently in ignorance of the true qualities of the liquid and in contempt of its proper employment.
For, if one might, for a trope's sake, alter the sex of this most male of beverages, one would say that there be many who take with them to the stews beauty and virtue which should command the grateful awe of men.
Though, in truth, there is little of the marble idol of divinity about this swift and fiery spirit. It belongs to the alchemist's and to the long nights shot with cold, flickering beams; it is compact of Druid spells and Sabbaths (of the witches and the Calvinists); its graces are not shameless, Latin, and the abundant, but have a sovereign austerity, whether the desert's or the north wind's; there are flavours in it, insinuating and remote, from mountain torrents and the scanty soil on moor-land rocks and slanting, rare sun-shafts."
From Aeneas MacDonald's "Whisky"
I think this is going to be a good book. With an intro like that, how can it not be?
I recently forgot to bring brown water on a cold four day fall weather Steelhead float. I now keep a bottle in my dry bag for the next excursion.
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