Best Whisky Quotes

Of all the many pleasures in life, there is perhaps none more satisfying than whisky. The beautiful brown brew – distilled from fermented grain and aged in wooden casks – has played a long, storied, and healthily prominent role in the history of man. Its name derives from the Irish words for “water of life.” Indeed it is.

There are few things more manly than drinking whisky. Mark Twain once wrote about the great pioneers who mined California gold: “They reveled in gold, whisky, fights, and fandangoes, and were unspeakably happy…They cooked their own bacon and beans, sewed on their own buttons, washed their own shirts – blue woolen ones. Men – only swarming hosts of stalwart men – nothing juvenile, nothing feminine, visible anywhere!” From the Macedonians of ancient Greece to modern day Texans, drinkers throughout history have understood that whisky is emblematic of toughness and individuality. Whisky - the drink of the self-made man.

 

No beverage – save water – crosses more borders and cultures. Through prohibition, wars and revolutions, economic depressions and recessions, whisky has remained an enduring staple. Today it sits firm in its position as the international spirit of choice.

 

Great lyrics have been sung and great words have been written and spoken about whisky. Here are some of the best.

 

I have drunk since I was fifteen and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky? When you are cold and wet what else can warm you?  -Ernest Hemingway

 

I should never have switched from scotch to martini’s.  -Humphrey Bogart’s last words

 

I like my whisky old and my women young.  -Errol Flynn

 

Anyone who hates dogs and loves whiskey can’t be all bad.  -W.C. Fields

 

My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky.  -William Faulkner

 

No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he did when he was single.  -H.L. Mencken

 

How solemn and beautiful is the thought that the earliest pioneer of civilization, the van-leader of civilization, is never the steamboat, never the railroad, never the newspaper, never the missionary – but always whisky!  -Mark Twain

 

The proper drinking of Scotch whisky is more than indulgence: it is a toast to civilization, a tribute to the continuity of culture, a manifesto of man’s determination to use the resources of nature to refresh mind and body and enjoy to the full the senses with which he has been endowed.  -David Daiches

 

And last but not least, the great “Whiskey Speech” - recited by Mississippi Senator Noah S. “Soggy” Sweat, Jr. during a 1952 debate over the legalization of alcohol:

 

You have asked how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey:

 

If you mean whiskey, the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean that evil drink that topples Christian men and women from the pinnacles of righteous and gracious living into the bottomless pits of degradation, shame, despair, helplessness, and hopelessness, then, my friend, I am opposed to it with every fiber of my being.

However, if by whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the elixir of life, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer, the stimulating sip that puts a little spring in the step of an elderly gentleman on a frosty morning; if you mean that drink that enables man to magnify his joy, and to forget life’s great tragedies and heartbreaks and sorrow; if you mean that drink the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars each year, that provides tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitifully aged and infirm, to build the finest highways, hospitals, universities, and community colleges in this nation, then my friend, I am absolutely, unequivocally in favor of it. This is my position, and as always, I refuse to be compromised on matters of principle.

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Beyond Mom … there is dad