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ilO Gaelic Society of Inverness.
Drixks.— Of the early beverages of the Highlanders little is
known. Whey was their common drink, but tradition says that
a kind of ale was made from the heather, a punch from the mountain
ash, and mead from honey. Boethius says, — '' Drinks were
distilled from thyme, mint, and anise." The heather ale was from
the tops in bloom, which contained a large amount of honey, being
out, steeped and boiled, and fermented. Honey was also boiled
with water, and fermented ; and though it is often said the art is
lost, " Nether-Lochaber" told me he had seen and drunk heather
ale in Rannoch as late as 1840. While a liquor is got by tapping
the silver birch—and this is practised at the })resent time
it is sometimes fortified by spirits, and when kept resembles cider.
The roots of the " Orobus Tuberosus," the Oor-meil or Carrael
of the Highlanders, was used for chewing to remove the feeling of
hunger, and a fermented liquor was also made from it.
Wine was also made from currant and elder flower. I have
tasted some red currant wine over 60 years' old, ver^ good and
strong, although I was assured, on the most reliable evidence, no
spirit was ever put into it.
I had written an account of whisky as known to the ancients,
but I find that Mr. Macdonald, of Dingwall, has so fully gone
into the question in a former paper, that it would only be repeating
what has already been thoroughly done by him. I shall,
therefore, content myself with one or two remarks on this subject,
as applicable to Scotland and the Highlands.
Until the close of last century whisky was less used than
rum and brandy, which were Ian led on the West Coast, aud
thence conveyed over the interior ; indeed, it was not till the
beginning of the last century that spirits of any kind were so
much drunk as ale, vvhich was formerly the universal beverage.
French wines and bi-andy succeeded the general use of ales
among the gentry.
It is said that in the seventeenth and the early part of the
eighteenth century " Inverness enjoyed almost a monopoly in the
art and practice of malting, and supplied all the Northern counties.
One half of the aggregate architecture of the town was a huge and
unsightly agglomeration of malting houses, kilns and granaries,
but from the date of the Revolution onward, this trade suflcred a
gradual decline ; and at one time it threatened to involve the
whole interests of the community in its fall. So low had the
times sunk even at the date of the Civil War of 1715-46, that it
looked almost lik(i a field of ruins the very centre of it containing
many for.saken and dilapidateil houses."
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