WHISKY
The Universe as we know it abounds in enigmas. And perhaps the most
stupendous enigma of all of them is called whisky. In Scotland whisky
is the universal ichor and panacea. In Ireland a kind of whisky which
is unquestionably whisky, but not Scotch, stands in the same friendly
relation to the people. In England we drink both kinds, lying thus
between the devil and the deep sea. There cannot be the slightest doubt
that the baser sorts of whisky are Scotch, and that the primal, more
edifying and more inspiring sorts—if we only knew it—are Irish. He who
drinks beer thinks beer. He who drinks whisky thinks whisky. He who
drinks Scotch whisky becomes as the Scotch people, who, as all men know,
are a hectoring, swaggering, dull-witted, bandy-legged, plantigrade
folk. He who drinks Irish whisky becomes as the Irish, who should be
nimble, and neat, and vivacious, and thriftless, and careless, and
lavish, and decent, and otherwise gracious. The wise man, of course,
will let both varieties pass by him, excepting that he take them in
thimblefuls, and then only in the shape of nightcaps. And lest the
United Kingdom Alliance misconstrue what I have now said, let me here
say roundly and flatly and out of a good heart—A plague on both your
whiskies! The Scotch, it is true, is better to your taste; but the Irish
has the merit of being better to your ethical or nobler parts. The effect
of Irish whisky upon Ireland is a matter that might fittingly form the
subject of six or eight stout volumes, bound in calf and prefaced by a
life of Father Mathew. The appealing and startling beauty of Irish whisky
as a potable spirit appears to lie in the fact that it has never done
Ireland any harm. The number of whisky-sodden persons in Scotland and
the number of whisky-sodden persons in Ireland stand in the ratio of ten
to one. In Scotland the red nose and the pimply face abound. Outside
that fearsome area known as the Diamond, there is scarcely a red nose or
a pimply face in all Ireland. All the best Scotch whisky is produced in
legitimate distilleries, and all the best Irish whisky, with due respect,
of course, to Dunville, Jamieson et hoc genus, comes out of little places
which are unbeknownst to the King’s officers of Excise. This, however,
is merely extraordinary, paradoxical, and inexplicable, and has nothing
whatever to do with ethnology. But to return to the point: whisky in
Scotland is a religion, an institution, a tradition, and a national
reproach. Whisky in Ireland, on the other hand, is an accomplishment,
an ornament, a mellowness, a kindness, a simplicity, and a joy forever.
The true Irish people drink it wisely as the Gaul takes his wine. When
you see a number of drunken persons in Ireland, you may safely assume
that they are Orangemen and of Scotch descent. The Irish of Ireland do
not get drunk; which means that they neither roister in bars nor soak
alcoholically at home. According to Mr. Hussey, Irish whisky is “vilely
adulterated,” both by the publican and “in some of the factories.” In
support of this statement he tells the following story: “On one occasion
a Killorglin publican was in jail, and his father asked for an interview
because he wanted the recipe for manufacturing the special whisky for
Puck Fair. It has been a constant practise to prepare this blend, but
the whisky does not keep many days, as may be gathered from the recipe,
which the prisoner without hesitation dictated to his parent: ‘A gallon
of fresh, fiery whisky, a pint of rum, a pint of methylated spirit, two
ounces of corrosive sublimate, and three gallons of water.’” Which is to
suggest that the Irish have no palates, and that like the gentleman who
ate fly-papers in mistake for oatcake, they are poison-proof. Frankly,
I should be disposed to take Mr. Hussey’s recipe with great reserve.
It is amusing, doubtless, but a chemist would shake his head over it.
Practically, the only undesirable drinking which goes on in Ireland
proper is done at wakes; but even Mr. Hussey admits that wakes are on the
decline, and not by any means the occasions for over-indulgence which
they once were. It is all very well to visit a country town and single
out half a dozen notorious drunkards with the view of proving that the
Irish people are a drunken people. I say that the Irish people in the
lump are a sober people, though they may not be teetotalers. I will go
further and admit that they have a wonderful appreciation for the wine of
the country, and that at times some of them even get hearty. But this is
not to say that drink rages in Ireland as it rages in Scotland, or, for
that matter, as it rages in the poorer quarters of our English cities.
And I believe further that, taking the whisky of Ireland all round, it
is a much sounder and less sophisticated spirit than the bulk of the
whisky consumed in Scotland and England. Mr. Hussey assures us that the
increase of lunacy in Ireland has been pronounced by the Committee which
sat on the question in Dublin to be mainly due, not only to excessive
drinking, but to the assimilation of adulterated spirits. With all
respect to the conclusions of this Committee, I do not think that those
conclusions are borne out by the facts. Lunacy in Ireland is the direct
outcome of the almost unthinkable poverty and squalor of the greater part
of the population. When you couple with poverty, want of occupation, a
solitary life, and an enervating climate, not to mention the melancholy
brooding propensities of the Irish peasant, it is no wonder that lunacy
claims many victims. To allege that because a lunatic has been in the
habit of consuming a considerable quantity of poteen his lunacy is
necessarily due to poteen, seems to me to be begging the question. If you
could alleviate the poverty and inaction to which the Irish peasant is
condemned from the day of his birth to the day of his death, you would
have gone a long way toward eliminating lunacy from Ireland, and at the
same time I believe you would find that you had not seriously reduced the
consumption of whisky, the fact being that the consumption per head of
the population is reasonable. In this, as in many other respects, Ireland
has been grossly misrepresented, both by serious and humorous writers.
The humorous writers, indeed, have been the graver offenders. Many of
them seem incapable of conceiving the Irish character in any terms but
those of hilarious and flagrant alcoholism. It is a profound mistake, and
we shall be helped materially in our endeavors to comprehend and placate
our unfortunate sister kingdom, if we dismiss forthwith from our minds
the idea that she is utterly and perceptibly given over to inordinate
drinking.