Positive Liberty

This story (found via Andrew Sullivan) is pure, unadulterated bunk:

A 17TH-CENTURY firewater, more than two spoonfuls of which was said to be enough to kill a grown man, is to be revived by a whisky distillery in Scotland.

A single drop of the ancient drink of “usquebaugh-baul” was described by the travel writer Martin Martin in 1695 as powerful enough to affect “all members of the body.” He added: “Two spoonfuls of this last liquor is a sufficient dose; if any man should exceed this, it would presently stop his breath, and endanger his life.”

Ominously, the Times of London declares that Bruichladdich distillery aims to make enough of the brew to kill an “army.”

Nonsense. Hokum. Utter garbage. Assuming that the whisky’s ethyl alcohol content really is 92%, then two spoonfuls of the stuff would equal a whopping four spoonfuls of an ordinary 46%-alcohol whisky. It’s also the equivalent of twenty spoonfuls at 4.6% abv — or a good deal less than a tarted-up pint of beer.

Sure, it’ll be tough getting the concoction down, but it certainly won’t be fatal. Indeed, I’d gladly wager a full bottle of the stuff that I could imbibe a whopping ten teaspoons in an hour’s time, with no fatal aftereffects at all. (If you’re counting, this is supposedly enough to kill five grown men — or, by a generous estimate, it may just be the equivalent of five pints of beer. I’m sure I’d get plenty drunk, but if that’s the worst of my worries, then let the betting begin.)

Lastly, I’d also love to see a citation for the following claim. As an experienced homebrewer, I can say with some authority that it is flat-out false:

The US Secret Service admitted in 2003 that it had been monitoring the distillery because the difference between distilling a fine whisky and making chemical weapons was “just a small tweak”.

Hogwash. No part of brewing or distillation bears any resemblance to the manufacture of chemical weapons. None of the byproducts produced in brewing or distillation are at all similar to these weapons; structurally, ethyl alcohol itself is unlike any of the known chemical warfare agents; and no inherent dangers await the unwary brewer/distiller unless 1) he uses lead pipes, which are poisonous but far outside of the WMD-big leagues, or 2) he is careless with fire around the distillation equipment. These last are fairly minor risks that are encountered not just in distilling but in nearly all industrial food and chemical preparations.

Short form: This thing has “publicity stunt” written all over it. Want a real whisky? Try Laphroaig instead.

Update: I see that the Times has already taken the story down. Score one for common sense. See more of the hype here, here, here, and here.

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