I started tweeting out whisky quotes and I am going to add them here as well since not everyone tweets. If you have a good whisky quote, please email it to me, [email protected]. Twitter is @AustinTXScotch
“Aye, to hell wi’ all the rest,
Give me a bottle o’ the best,
The amber bead I’ll down wi’ speed,
It’s not no bad taste or waste, just greed.”
-Jack Foley “Bottle of the Best”
“By Tormore and Tamnavoulin, by Aultmore and Tomintoul
For a spiritual sprauchle by the Spey”
Robin Laing, “Speyside Whisky Song”
“Fortune! if thou’ll but gie me still
Hale breeks, a scone, an’ whisky gill,
An’ rowth o’ rhyme to rave at will,
Tak a’ the rest,
An’ deal’t about as thy blind skill
Directs thee best.”
-Robert Burns, “Scotch Drink”
“And if they get it up to 90 ABV
It’s going to be an awesome WMD”
-Robin Laing, “We Can’t Let Al Qaeda Get Their Hands On This”
“Glenturret, Glen Scotia and last week Glen Fyne
Was rare at communion when we ran out of wine
Glenglassoch, Glen Lossie, Glendullan Glenmorangie
I prefer them to Cointreau which I find too orangie.”
-W.D.Hardie “Our Glens”
“Last night, I spent an hour going around and around a roll of Scotch tape before I put it down and went for real Scotch.”
-Ellen Degeneres on giftwrap
“Now Jim has made a whisky he calls it his Black Art
It’s mystical, it’s magical – bewitches the heart
Soon every lass on Islay will have to buy a pram
But don’t blame Islay cheese – blame the Bruichladdich dram”
-Robin Laing “Bruichladdich Dram”
“A wee drap o’ whisky I tak’ when I’m weary
My blood for to warm and my spirits to cheer
And when I sit doon I intend to be merry
So fill up a bumper and bring it round here.”
-Traditional Scottish Song, “Wee Drop o’ Whisky”
“Campbeltown Loch I wish you were whiskey,
Campbeltown Loch och-aye!
Campbeltown Loch I wish you were whiskey,
I would drink you dry.”
-Andy Stewart
“I take whisky for my breakfast
To see me through the day
Just one little whisky
Helps me on my way
It clears my tubes, thins my blood
Clarifies my head
Just one little whisky
Then I go back to bed ”
-Robin Laing
“Let other poets raise a fracas
“Bout vines, an’ wines, an’ drucken Bacchus,
An’ crabbit names an’stories wrack us,
An’ grate our lug:
I sing the juice Scotch bear can mak us,
In glass or jug.”
-Robert Burns
“Hello, I’m Nick Offerman, & because I am a fully grown human being, I enjoy a good glass of Scotch whisky.” -Offerman, “My Tales of Whisky”
“But what need further botheration,
I’m clear, a drap in moderation,
Has a’ the wise’s approbation
Then, guid Scots Whisky”
-George Bruce
“Keep all the cheap stuff for the unwanted guests
Or rub it on your chest if you’ve got pests in your vest”
-Robin Laing, “Special Sippin’ Whisky”
“If a body can just find oot the exac’ proper proportion and quantity (of Scotch) that ought to be drunk every day and keep to that, I verily throw that he might leeve forever without dying at all, and that doctors and kirkyards would go oot o’ fashion” -James Hogg
“Your wine it may do for the bodies far south,
But a Scotsman likes something that bites i’ the mouth,
And whisky’s the thing that can do’t to a tee.
Then Scotsmen and whisky will ever agree”
-Alexander Rodger
“From the Lowlands to the Highlands,
From Japan to the Hebrides,
From Orkney to Kentucky,
And the far Antipodes,
From Tennessee to Canada,
And Ireland’s emerald land,
There’s a world of whisky out there,
So let’s have another dram”
-Robin Laing, “World of Whisky”
“And a whiskey still I’ll kill,
I’ll drink my fill and if you spill a gill,
You know I will,
I’ll lick it off the floor!”
-Jack Foley “Bottle of the Best”
“The Hielen’ Hills are high high,
The Hielen’ miles are long,
But Hielen whisky is the thing,
To make a body strong.”
-Traditional, Hielen Hills
“Would you please charge your glasses with the real pure drop And drink tae the best o’ the barley”
-Brian McNeil “Best o’ the Barley”
“For people who enjoy a spirit with flavor, malt whisky at its most robust is a world champion.
Those who suffer from fear of flavor might feel safer with white rums or vodkas.”
-Michael Jackson, Whisky Expert
“When you hold it in your hand,
it’s the pulse of one small nation
-So much more than just a dram
You can see it if you will
-The people and the weather and the land.
The past into the present is distilled.”
-Robin Laing, “More Than Just A Dram”
“Whisky is liquid sunshine.”
George Bernard Shaw
“Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.” -Robert Burns
Robert Burns wrote the “Selkirk Grace” from a traditional prayer. For us Scotch Lovers, let me add:
Some have a nip and cannot sip,
And some would drink that want it,
But we have Scotch, It’s all we want,
So let the Lord be thankit.
“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
“There was an old man from Corunna.
Who ate chocolate dipped in A’bunadh,
He said ‘This great thing
Has sweetened death’s sting,
But I wished I discovered it sooner.'”
-Robin Laing
“When friendship and truth and good fellowship reign,
And folk that are old can feel youthful again;
When ilka heart is happy, and wordly cares forgot,
Is when we’re a’ met thegither owre a wee drappie o’t.”
-Traditional, “Wee Drappie O’t”
“The light music of whisky falling into glasses made an agreeable interlude.”
― James Joyce, Dubliners
“When I come to Dufftown
I stay at Tannochbrae
Alan keeps some whisky
In an aerosol spray
He spreads a mist of whisky
Over my beans on toast
Then he squirts some on my tongue
And I like that the most ”
-Robin Laing, “Whisky for Breakfast”
“O Whisky! soul o’ plays and pranks!
Accept a bardie’s gratfu’ thanks!
When wanting thee, what tuneless cranks
Are my poor verses!”
-R.Burns
“Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.” -Mark Twain
“Macallan fly high…
Under the water, sunlight on sand
Just like the light that shines
Through the glass that sits in my hand”
-Robin Laing, “Macallan”
Whisky Haiku by Chenou Liu
“crowded
in my whisky glass
autumn stars”
“Never cry over spilt milk. It could’ve been whiskey.” ~”Pappy” Maverick, in Maverick
“From Glenfiddich to Glenlossie, Glenlivet to GlenKeith
I’m a whisky-sippin’ Speyside sycophant!”
-Robin Laing, “Speyside Whisky Song”
“Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne’er fail in old Scotland!”
-Robert Burns
“Glenfiddich, Glendronach, Glenlivet, Glen Fall
I once knew a man who had sampled them all
Glenisla, Glenugie, Glenkinchie, that’s plenty
He looked sixty-five, but in fact he was twenty!”
from “Leave us our Glens” by W.D. Hardie
“Have no fear, it’s not like beer,
malt whisky’s strong and bright and clear;
it’s also bloody dear – but what the Hell!”
-Jack Foley, “Bottle o’the Best
“When you’re far away from Islay
and wishing you were there,
There’s little point in fretting and pulling out your hair
A book of Whisky Legends and a CD by the Man
Kick off your shoes and pour yourself a Bruichladdich dram.”
-Robin Laing, “Bruichladdich Dram”
“The whisky’s good, aye the whisky’s grand,
a wee droppie o’t’ll dae ye no harm.”
-from “Piper MacNeil”, traditional Scottish song
“And all around the world, whenever whisky’s poured,
The hatred of the past will end at last, and peace will be restored.”
– Robin Laing, “World of Whisky”
This is the first tweet, not actually a quote. but I want to save it here, too:
Scotch Whisky inspires songs, books, poetry, & long evenings of deep conversation. It’s best when shared. Join us for a wee dram.