Have you noticed that there are two spellings for the word "whiskey": "whisky" and "whiskey"? What is the reason for this? A typo? An oversight by the producer? Imitation or authentic? Questions you may have asked yourself but never found an answer to. The truth is that there is no mistake, because both spellings are correct. But let's find out why the "water of life" is spelled with and without an "e".

Whisky or Whiskey?

I will tell you a parable that was told to me by a good Irishman and is not very much liked by good Scotsmen.

Many whiskey years ago, on the British isle, lived a good English queen who dearly loved the "Water of Life". To the joy of the Scots and the sorrow of the Irish, she preferred to raise full glasses of Scotch, not Irish whiskey. One distant whiskey day, a cart full of barrels, filled with amber elixir, arrived at the royal court. The Queen impatiently took a sip but sensed something was wrong. A little later, she patiently took another sip, and then another. As patience was not one of her strong suits, she admitted that she did not like this batch. She immediately complained to her Scottish suppliers, who dismissed her royal opinion and demanded payment. They even refused to admit that the delivery was problematic. They lost the argument with the Queen. Soon after, royal envoys visited the Irish lands with a request to purchase whiskey from their stills. When the Irish liquid treasure arrived, the Queen liked it and decided that she would buy from the spirited Irish. But she didn't know how to differentiate the two whiskies, so she decided to remove the letter "e" from the spelling for the Scots and keep it for the Irish whiskey.

In every parable, there is a lot of truth and a lot of fiction. We are of the opinion that one "e" will not confuse us, but will motivate us to raise our glasses even higher for the two whiskey kingdoms: Ireland and Scotland.

Additionally, we will note that the letter "e" is also present on the labels of most American whiskeys. This is a decision that producers made themselves, but it is also dictated by the past, when the first American whiskeys began to be produced. If the producer was a descendant of Irish people, they kept the letter "e" in the spelling. If the producer was a descendant of Scots, they spelled their product as "whisky".

The Japanese follow everything Scottish, so it's not surprising that all brands there spell it without the letter "e".

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