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“Elixicography”
The origin of distillation and the names with which we are now familiar is fascinating.
The discovery of the art of distillation was neither Greek nor Roman and there is no evidence of it in France before the 14th century.
Although many nationalities claim to have invented distillation the smart money is on the Moors. There is evidence of distillation in North Africa as far back as 900AD. They used the distillate as an antiseptic rather than drinking it. The moors called the liquid al-Kohl from whence we get the word alcohol.
Although China has a claim they probably learnt from the Moors and took the knowledge to Egypt where it was called al-Khem, from which we get the word alchemy.
Alcohol was revered for its property of preserving organic matter, giving it the name of water of immortality. Translated into many languages this has given us many familiar names. In Gaelic it became uisge beatha, dropping the second word it is now pronounced as simply whisky (Try saying Uisge out loud). In French it is eau de vie, in Latin aqua vitae (aquavit) and in old Roman el lxr or Elixir. In English we called it spiritual water but now just refer to spirits.
Any Port in a storm?
Although the first wine producing area to have strict controls, Port can be confusing.
The following gives a brief explanation of the different types available.
Single Malt Whisky – Not just Scotch
Scotland is not the only producer of Single Malt Whisky. It is the only producer of Single Malt Scotch Whisky of course.
There are hundreds of brands of Whisky, Whiskey, Rye and Bourbon as well as other grain spirits. The following list is most of the other Single Malt Whiskies around the world.
Those in blue are available fairly easily and the ones in red are normally in stock.
Is it Organic?
I often get asked for "Organic Wine" (and it must say "Organic" on the label). Because the organic certification refers to the growing of the grapes not the production of the wine it cannot legally be labelled "Organic Wine" in Europe. It can be labelled "Wine made from organically grown grapes". (However in the USA this label means that only 70% of the grapes must be organic.)
Most smaller grower/producers use sustainable methods and avoid sprays. Their motivation is to produce the best, most natural wines and to sustain their vineyards for future generations.
Facts and figures
Production figures are difficult to assemble. A few years ago I trawled though a lot of government statistics around the world and came up with a snapshot of acreage and volume over a 10 year period to 2003. It took a long time and I don’t intend to repeat the process soon. The following are some of the highlights of the study.
More facts and figures
The most planted grape variety is Airen with 476,000 ha. It is only grown in Spain, mainly La Mancha and is used for Jerez brandy as well as wine.
Garnacha Tinto (Grenache) comes second, with Spain again growing the vast majority.
Rkatsitela from the former USSR and Bulgaria comes third.
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