Monks and Native Americans, the First Distillers

By Bill Sutton

In the Scottish highlands, several men gather wood and brush, return to their house and stoke the huge fire raging beneath caldrons of barley mash. It’s about 1150 A.D. and the men, monks guarded by giant monastery walls, are preparing a high-alcohol beverage called “uisge beatha,” the breath of life (aqua vitae in Latin). Around Europe, the great cathedrals are just being started while using the new technique: the flying buttress. A Remarkable Crusade is underway within the Holy Land.

The monks, when not distilling the very first known liquor that’ll be known as Scotch whiskey, were growing food including the ingredients for the mash: barley and the fungi called yeast. The barley is soaked for several days, or “malted,” then ground (mashed) and fermentation begins. Distilling will happen in copper vats, and the monks pour the distilate into oak casks which would have taken months to produce and seal. The casks then sit for half a year to several years. The security and affluence of the monastery, and the fearful reverence the populace would have had for monks, guaranteed this to be one of the few safe places for creating whiskey in the High Middle Ages.

The original commercial distilleries appear at the conclusion of the 15th century, with written receipts for Scotch documented in 1495. As Europe urbanized and materials became more available, people could design and make more useful stills, those not open to the air and losing the majority of the product to steam. Coils and other reduction equipment for barley distilling came into use, and other cereals became popular.

Meanwhile, on which would become the American continent, Native Americans were producing alcohol from many native plants, including corn. Europeans arrived to see many foods and grains, and experienced corn whiskey for the first time. In Massachusetts, the Scots-Irish population settling in and sawing down vast hardwood forests knew how to proceed. They used whatever materials were available to make corn liquor, and as early as 1633 the Massachusetts Colony started demanding a license to sell it. The struggle between governments looking for revenue and the people who wished to make their own rules about distilleries had begun.

Naturally, people had made wine and ale for a lot longer than this. Many drinks with alcohol were available, nevertheless the private enterprise issues that continue today had started. Before the revolution, still owners were left almost entirely alone. Washington and Jefferson ran their very own stills. Following the revolution, taxes were applied to all alcohol to assist pay war debt and farmers would not approve. Their stills had in large part become their livelihoods.

The Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania was the most significant and best known of the battles moonshiners had with federal government agents, but the battles continued, large and small, throughout rural areas in the east. The Appalachian Mountains through Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee later became renowned for moonshine whiskey and the many stories of backwoods distilling.

Whiskey has a fascinating history. Many interesting characters make up the moonshiners land scape. Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton was one such character. If anybody knew how to make whiskey, Marvin did. To learn more about making whiskey take a look at the vast amount of resources available on the web to educate and discover.

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