Spirited Semantics
Bartenders, distillers, and writers love to use the term “the angel’s share” to explain the annual loss of spirits due to evaporation. But where did the boozy phrase come from?
Dr. Nicholas Morgan is a published academic and historian who moved in 1990 from teaching Scottish History at the University of Glasgow into the world of beverage alcohol to establish the now world-famous Diageo Archive. He went on to enjoy a rich and varied career at Diageo, where for many years he was responsible for the world’s largest portfolio of malt whiskies and became an internationally well-known and respected commentator on the whisky category. In 2017, he won the IWSC’s Outstanding Achievement in Scotch Whisky Award. Nicholas was made the 48 inductee into the Whisky Hall of Fame in March 2018. In October 2020, before leaving Diageo, his acclaimed bi-centennial history of Johnnie Walker, A Long Stride: The Story of the World's No. 1 Scotch Whisky, was published by Canongate. His new book, Everything You Need to Know About Whisky (but are too afraid to ask) will be published by Ebury in September 2021.
EXCERPT
Read this fascinating excerpt about the origins of Scotch from the new book “A Long Stride—The Story of the World’s No 1 Scotch” by Nicholas Morgan.