Our Aberdeen: Say cheers to city’s whisky heritage By Phil Astley, City Archivist 14/05/2021, 2:54 pm
Updated: 14/05/2021, 5:02 pm
May 15 is World Whisky Day when I, along with many others, will be indulging in a dram or two…responsibly, of course!
Aberdeen has a remarkably long connection with whisky. Indeed, the earliest documented reference to a still for making “aqua vite” appears in an entry dated 20th June 1505 in volume 8 of the Aberdeen Burgh Registers. “Aqua vite” in Latin means “water of life” and is the Middle Scots word for whisky. The entry was discovered by a researcher from the University of Aberdeen in 2019.