I discovered a new option for where the word “WHISKEY” may have originated…
The word “whisk” (Scotch: quhiske)- to move rapidly, to go lightly-is the word given to to light chase apparently invented by the Scots-Irish whiskey smugglers to escape tax collectors!
The King’s law required that all liquors be transported in barrels of sixty gallons or more. Taxes could then be placed on the liquor and the size of the wagon transporting the liquor. The smugglers would use small, one horse wagons and put their liquor in smaller 5 or 10 gallon barrels to travel swiftly over the moors and less used roads to escape detection. The “whiskeys”, or fast moving delivery carts, as they were called would’ve been well known by their customers. “Here comes the Whiskey!” I’d never heard that one before, but the explanation is in the Barton Museum of Whiskey History in Bardstown, KY!
The more accepted explanation is that the word whiskey is derived from the word whiskybae, who’s source was the Gaelic uigebeatha, USQUEBAUGH, meaning water of life. The English couldn’t pronounce the Gaelic word and it was shortened over time to whiskey.
