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DE QUINCEY, who has some
claims as an authority on intoxicants has opined that our northern
climates have universally the taste latent, if not developed, for
powerful liquors. He may be right; but, as a matter of fact, the taste
has developed very slowly. In early times it prevailed chiefly in
climates where the grape was grown, or in latitudes where bang and
similar brews fired the savage breast. Moreover, once a race has made
choice of its liquor, it clings thereto with a more than superstitious
tenacity, and may be induced to change even its religion with less
reluctance and a lighter sense of misgiving. It seems ultimately to be
less a matter of appetite or gustation than of sentiment. By its
connection with the rites of hospitality and the main episodes of social
life the liquor of a people becomes in some sort the symbol of its
patriotism and its nobler human feelings. Doubtless the increase of
travel, the inter- mixture of races, and the intercommunion between
nations may tend partly to obliterate such predilections; but now, as of
old, it will generally be found that, at least in the case of
intoxicants, the adoption, even partially, by one nation of another's
liquor is to some extent an evidence of reciprocal respect and goodwill.
It was not till after the accession of Dutch William to the throne of
England that Englishmen began to develop that affection for gin which in
the beginning of the eighteenth century led to such extraordinary
excesses. The English vogue for Scottish whisky also has been at least
coincident with a better appreciation of the Scot. Possibly some of the
more ardent of the Southron votaries of the liquor have a lurking
suspicion that it has a not very remote connection with the Scot's
persistency and "cannieness"; that while "the haillsome parritch" is
perhaps in some degree responsible for his stamina, whisky even more
than Calvinism has been his main discipline and inspiration.
Historically, however, whisky is not more the national liquor of
Scotland than the kilt is the national dress, or Gaelic the national
language. The only difference is that, while the dress and language of
the Highland Celt seem alike destined to disappear at no distant date,
whisky has not only survived the conquest of the Highlands, but has
extended its empire to the Lowlands as well.
Originally the national
liquor of Lowland Scotland, as of "Merrie England," was ale, the
universal liquor of the Saxons. There is abundant evidence that ale was
the universal beverage in the Lowlands as early as the thirteenth
century, and the presumption is that its use in Caledonia was coeval
with the arrival of our Saxon forefathers. True, among the nobles wine
was very much in use from the thirteenth century onwards, and for
several centuries it was drunk among the upper classes more generally in
Scotland than in England. The Scottish vogue for wine was greatly owing
to the friendly relations between Scotland and France. The staple was
claret, though Malvoisie, Canary, Madeira, and other wines were imported
at an early period. Still, claret never became the Scots national
liquor, and although occasionally sold by Edinburgh vintners at a very
early period it could not be had in good country inns till the
eighteenth century. In "The Friars of Berwick," which may be assigned to
the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century, the
silly friars," Robert and Allan, are regaled in the wonder good
hostelrie" without the town on "stoups of ale with. bread and
cheese"; and there was evidently nothing better on tap, for among the
materials brought by the amorous Friar John for his surreptitious feast
with the landlady, while the other friars were supposed to be asleep in
the loft, were— "Ane
pair of bossis [Earthen bottles.] O good and fine
They hold ane gallon-full of Gascon wine."
That ale was at this period considered good
enough even for the richest merchants may also be inferred from the
"Priests of Peebles." The successful trafficker therein described had
waxed Sae full of
woridis wealth and win
His hand he wash in ane silver basin";
but in regard to his table provisions it is
deemed sufficient to state that his wife had no doubt of dearth of ale
nor bread." In the
regulations issued by the Scottish Privy Council on August 27,
1602—about a century later—for, the meals of the masters and bursars of
the University of Glasgow ale is the only liquor recognised: "The first
meis, consisting of the FYVE MAISTERIS, sall have to thair dijoyne
[French Déjuiner.] ane quhyte breid of ane pund wecht in a sowpe, with
the remains of a peice beif or mutton resting of the former day, with
thair pynt of aill amangis thame. To thair denner they sal have
ordinarlie qnhyt breid anench, with fyve choppnis of sufficient guid and
better nor the common sell aill in the town, with ane disehe of bruise,
and ane uther of skink [Strong soup without vegetables, resembling
beef-tea.] or kaill, a piece of soddon niuttoun, another of beif, salt
or fresche, according to the season, ane roist of beif, salt or fresehe,
according to the season, ane roist of veill or muttoun with a foull or
cunyng, [Rabbit.] or a pair of dowis [Pigeons.] or chilckins, or uther
siclyk secund rost as the seasoun gevis. And siclyk to thair supper."
According to our modern notions, the solids on which the masters fared
were more sumptuous than the liquids. The only meal at which liquor was
allowed to the bursars was dinner: "ane quart of of aill." From the Acts
passed by Parliament in the sixteenth century regulating the price of
ale so that the seller might have no undue advantage of the buyer, it is
plain that the liquor was regarded as a necessary article of diet. In
those pre-Lawsonian years the design of the Acts was to encourage, not
discourage, its use. Drunkenness does not appear to have been a popular
vice. It was by no means severely dealt with even by the Reformers; and
although after the Reformation regulations were passed in Edinburgh and
other cities closing all taverns and alehouses at ten o'clock, this was
a mere corollary of a regulation for clearing the streets at this hour;
there was no intention to interfere with or limit the consumption of
ale. In like manner an Act passed in 1605 reducing the number of
ale-houses on the borders was intended merely to diminish the resorts of
thieves and rievers. Even the Covenanter Nicoll regarded the placing, in
1659, of an addtiona1 impost on ale by the town of Edinburgh as a
positive act of impiety, at which at the same instant "God frae the
heavens declared His anger by sending thunder and unheard tempests and
storms." The
quantity of wine which about the beginning of the sixteenth century came
into the general market appears to have been comparatively small. In
1508 the Edinburgh magistrates decided that the vintners should appoint
four or five persons of their faculty to buy the "Hule hoip" of wine and
divide it equally. For a long while after, however, the king (or queen),
the prelates, and the nobility claimed wine almost as a perquisite of
their own. In the reign of Mary Stuart regulations were more than once
passed, not only fixing its price but forbidding the importers to sell
their supply until the "Queen, prelates, earls, lords, and barons be
first stakit"; and when the wine duties were imposed in 1608 the nobles
were specially exempted from payment. It is curious, and perhaps
edifying, to note that John Knox, strongly as he denounced the luxurious
and sensuous habits of the Catholic clergy of his time, retained till
his dying day that relish for French wine which he had no doubt acquired
when a priest. Much as he railed against the French mote in Queen Mary's
eye, he was all unconscious of the beam of French claret in his own.
Amid the stern and severe thoughts which seemed to form the staple of
his meditations on his deathbed, as recorded by Richard Bannatyne, the
pleasant and kindly homeliness of the following incident stands out in
curiously piquant relief: "The Setterday," says Bannatyne, "John Dune
and Archibald Stewart come in about twelve houris, not knowing how seike
he was; and for thair cause come to the table, which was the last tyme
that ever he sat at ony thereafter; for he caused pierce ane hoggeid of
wine which was in the seller, and willed the said Archibald send for the
same so long as it lasted, for he would never tarie [live] until it were
drunken."
Ultimately there were three varieties of Scots ale—small, household, and
strong but it is the household ale alone—the "tippenny" of the Act of
Union, of Allan Ramsay and of Robert Burns—that is properly entitled to
the name and dignity of the national liquor. Ale of a corresponding
quality to that of Allsopp or Bass did not become a common beverage in
Scotland till comparatively recent times. Until the union of the crowns
there was practically no commercial intercourse between the two
kingdoms. it was with the utmost difficulty that James VI., in 1599,
could persuade Elizabeth's minister Cecil to grant the required license
for the transportation to Holyrood of "twelve tuns of double London
beer" (stout, no doubt) for the "King's dearest spouse," she, it was
pathetically pleaded, being "daily accustomed to drink of the same'';
but on his advent to the English throne such restrictions were greatly
modified. In 1610 an Act passed by the Privy Council to regulate the
price of English beer in Scotland set forth that importers should "sell
each tun of the said beer for £6, so that the retailer thereof may sell
the same for 18d. the pint, the penalty to be £20 for each tun sold for
more than £6." Probably the design and result of such an enactment, was
to greatly diminish the importation of English beer; at any rate the
Customs Act of 1063 had a very prejudicial effect on this and other
exports and manufactures. The question as to the duty to be paid on
Scots ale gave rise to considerable discussion in the debate on the
Seventh Article of Union. The one party held that it should be taxed at
the same rate as English ale, the other at the same rate as English
small beer; but when the question was examined in committee a medium
duty was agreed on. Subsequent changes in the excise duties on malt led
in Glasgow to serious riots, and inspired the Jacobites with delusive
hopes of a successful rising.
Ale and claret are the liquors chiefly sung
by Ahlaii Rainsay and by Robert Fergusson. As every schoolboy does not
know, honest Allan immortalised two Edinburgh alewives —Maggie Johustoun,
who kept the famous golfers' house of call near Bruntsfield Links-
"Aften in Maggie's at hy-jinks [A drinking
game.]
We guzzled scuds,
Till we could scarce wi' hale-out drinks
Cast aff our duds."
and Lucky Wood in the Canongate, who
"Ne'er gae in a lawin [Reckoning.] fause,
Nor stoups a' froath aboon the hause,
Nor kept dowd tip [Stale tipple.] within her waws,
But reaming swats [New ale.]
She ne'er ran sour jute, because
It gies the batts." [Colic.]
In Ramsay's day there was no such thing as
the modern "public.'' Ale, too, is the liquor quaffed in Fergusson's
"Farmer's Ingle"
Weel kens the gudewife that the ploughs require
A heartsome meltith, [Meal.] an' refreshing synd [Draught.]
O' nappy [Strong or good.] liquor, o'er a bleezmg fire
Sair wark an' pourtith [Poverty—scant fare.] downa well be join'd.
Wi' buttered bannocks now the girdle reeks
I' the far nook the bowie [Cask of beer.] briskly roams."
In "Toddlin' Hame," which
Burns thought the first bottle song that ever was composed, nothing
stronger than ale is mentioned:-
"Fair fa' the gudewife, and send her gude
sale!
She gies us white bannocks to relish her ale;
Syne, if that her tippenny chance to be sma',
We tak a guid scouro't and cat awa'."
But, though Ramsay could be "blythe and
fain" upon beer, he in certain moods indicates a special appreciation of
claret, especially in winter weather, when golf or howls were in
abeyance :- "Then
fling on coals, and ripe the ribs,
And beek [Warm—by means of a blazing fire.] the house baith but and hen
That mutchkin-stoup it buds but drips,
Then let's get in the tappit hen. [A bottle shaped like a hen, and
holding three quarts of claret.]
Good claret best keeps out the cauld,
And drives away the winter soon
It makes a man baith gash [Wise,] and bauld,
And heaves his soul beyond the moon."
In the eighteenth century claret was usually
kept on tap in the best taverns. Fergusson sings of one in Dumfries
famed for the liquor, and volunteers the opinion that, if that
''pleasant sinner" Q. H. F. had been alive,
"Nae mair he'd sing to auld Maceenas
The blinking een o' bonny Venus
His leave at ance hae ta'en us
For claret here."
Fergusson wrote some forty years later than Ramsay. Occasionally he
mentions whisky and gin with approbation. It was perhaps the
introduction of these more heady liquors that moved him to pen what is
probably the earliest extant teetotal ode, his "Cauler Water," but his
example in no wise corresponded with its precept and sentiment.
Dr. Somerville in his "Own Life and Times,"
referring to the period of his boyhood—about the middle of the
eighteenth century—thus writes: ''In families of my own rank the
beverages offered to ordinary visitors consisted of home-brewed ale and
of a glass of brandy; or, where there was greater ceremony, claret and
brandy punch" For a time the importation of French wine was stayed by
the plague of Marseilles (1720); but the use of claret, thus partially
interrupted in Scotland, was again, resumed, the real cause of its
permanent decline as the beverage of the Scottish middle and upper
classes being the outbreak of the great war towards the close of the
century. Port or other stronger wines were comparatively little drunk in
the north till the present century. Thus, a cargo of port, brought by
Sir Laurence Dundas in 1743, failed to find a ready sale; the Scottish
palate was then unused to it, and it was necessity rather than
preference that ultimately gave it its vogue.
The quality of our forefathers' liquor must
be taken into consideration in determining the significance of such
anecdotes as are illustrative of their convivial habits. Perhaps the
comparative weakness of the tipple was responsible for their longer
sittings. Vinous intoxication is also by no means so immediately hurtful
as that produced by the stronger liquors, although possibly the taste
"latent if not developed for powerful liquors" may have led to special
excess in the use of the light wines. Otherwise the drinking customs of
the better classes in Scotland were closely modelled on those of the
French. The tavern played quite as important a part in the social life
of Edinburgh as the Cafe continues still to do in the social life of
Paris or Marseilles. There the advocate discussed his client's business
over a glass of claret or bottle of ale, and tavern dinners were a
common diversion even of married men. In winter the wine was mulled and
drunk hot, sugar being used with it before tea or coffee was popular.
But with the invasion of strong waters, the respectability of the tavern
departed. In early
times drinking in alehouses was of the same prolonged character as
drinking in taverns, and for similar reasons. Whisky is far too potent
and speedy in its effects for the old drinking game of chance
''high-jinks," Scourging a, nine- gallon tree," which is, being
interpreted, drawing the spigot of a barrel of ale, and never quitting
it till it be drunk out, was another roisterer's pastime; but (in spite
of Burns's witness to its merits), with a staple of "tippenny" it must
have been alike comparatively innocuous and unspeakably dreary. The
excessive drinking indulged in at Lowland funerals in the eighteenth
century seems to have been coincident with the transition from ale to
whisky. The provision of refreshments was in many cases a necessity, on
account of the long distances some mourners had to come. The ordinary
was originally ale, with bread and cheese ; but when whisky began to be
supplied on the same bounteous scale as the milder beverage, the
consequences were sometimes appallingly ludicrous and sometimes
hideously indecent. |
