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Old Highland Industries. HI
"Whisky house is a term, till recently, almost unknown in
Gaelic. Public houses were called Tit^h-leanna, that is ale houses,
and had whisky been the ct)mm(>n drink of two hundred years
ago, there certainly would have been some notice taken of it in
the laws aftecting the Highlands, the accounts of society as
it then e\'isted, and mor(! particularly in their songs, tales, and accounts
of convivial meetings which have come down to us; but
there is no such thing, while the allusion to ale is very common.
It is true among the gentry that the latter three-fcurths of the last
century saw a marked increase of the use of French wines, and
ale became less used.
It is not ditiicult to .seek and lind the causes for the introduction
of whisky into the Highlands, apart from Government
encouragement. The gradual improvement of agricultuie produced
more grain, particularly barley, than was required for the
consumption of the country, much of the crops were reaped in a
damp and unripe state, and there being no roads it could not be
conveyed to the Lowdands, where the manufacture of whisky was
largely carried on, in a state such as to enable the farmer to pay
to his landloid a gradually inci'easing rent.
By Act of Parliament the Highland district was marked out
by an arV)itrary and imaginary line running at the base of the
Grampians. North of this area no distillation was allowed,
except from stills contaiiiing 500 gallons, and this, as a matter of
course, was a complete interdict against the use of barley legally
within the area, as there was neither consumption for the grain
nor disposal of the produce, as one still in a few mouths would
have worked up the whole cro[Js. However, distillation was the
easie.st way of disposing of it. The people thus were forced into
illegal distillation in order that they might use their crops, keep
credit with their landlords, and acquire the more expensive
necessaries for their families, which an improving state of society
demanded.
From the ill judged acts of the Government proceeded illegal distillation,
and all its subordinate results to the people in the country.
"We mu.-st distinguish between fermentation and distillation.
Fermented liquors seem to have been known, common to all races,
but the first distinct account of distillation, was spirit distilled
from wine in the 1 3th century. A.t this time Raymond Lully
of Majorca regarded it as an emanation from the divinity newly
revealed to man, but hidden from antiquity because the human
i"ace was too young to use the Vjeverage. The discovery was
supposed to indicate the end of the world and the consumation