On Monday the Royal Commission on the nature of whisky
published its Report after sitting for eighteen months. The Report is very good reading, as might be expected of such a fruitful conundrum as : What is whisky The purists con- tended that whisky is a very strictly defined thing,—spirit produced in a pot-still from either malted barley, as in the case of Scotch whisky, or from barley, malted or unmalted, with certain additions of other cereals, as in the case of Irish whisky. More latitudinarian experts approved of the product of the patent-still, and admitted the use of maize, or, indeed, any cereal grain whatsoever. Some other witnesses said in effect that they did not mind what whisky was made of so long as it tasted good. The Report takes a middle course and offers no condemnation of the patent-still. There has been a wide belief that the spirit which it produces is injurious, but the Commissioners declare that they have received no satisfactory evidence on the point. Further, they sweep aside as a superstition the common opinion that new spirit and the cheaper variety of spirits are specially harmfuL
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