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WHISKY

HAD your fill of Dry January? Even Veganuary? Then might I suggest Burns Night as a celebratory opportunity to see off both.

Today is the day that Scots, the Scottish diaspora and an arguably more niche cohort who just love sheep’s guts dishes celebrate the birth of Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns. My husband and I tick all three of the above boxes. After a dry ten days or so of January, we will savour a wee dram alongside our haggis, neeps and tatties.

Whisky can be dangerous stuff, but in Compton Mackenzie’s Hebridean wartime caper, Whisky Galore, it really is uisge beatha, Scottish Gaelic for ‘the water of life’.

The book is set in 1943, on the invented twin islands of Great and Little Todday, where whisky rationing has brought spirits terribly low. When the SS Cabinet Minister, bound for the U.S. with a cargo of export whisky, runs aground offshore, the island men rally to salvage its cargo. Spirits lift instantaneously, as evoked joyously in a singing scene in the classic Ealing Studios 1949 film version, available on iPlayer until February 14. Go on, fill your boots.

In tartan noir detective fiction, whisky is used as a libationary lubricant to induce confession. It can also be a solitary crutch: in the wee small hours, Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh detective Inspector Rebus can often be found sipping Highland Park, while brooding over a case.

Graeme Macrae Burnet’s 2016 Booker- shortlisted His Bloody Project is a historical drama set in the North-West Highlands. It purports to be papers relating to the 1869 murder trial of 17-year-old Roderick Macrae, including his written confession. Ale and whisky play their part in Roddy’s downfall.

Despite that, he is judgmental of others’ drinking. Describing the people of the neighbouring hamlet of Aird-Dhu, he writes: ‘In common with all those engaged in the fishing trade, the men are devoted to the unrestrained consumption of whisky, while their womenfolk are notoriously wanton.’

While alive to the perils of too much whisky, I’ll have a wee snifter tonight. If you do, too, then Sláinte!