What’s with the e in whisky?

When noting American and Irish whisky, a sense of tradition obligates writers to add the extra vowel. But how traditional is the extra letter? The truth is the use of the e has less to do with tradition and more to do with marketing.

There are plenty of American distilleries that spell whisky without the added vowel. Most famous is Maker’s Mark Whisky. Their reason? At their inception, American distilleries primarily used the e. Maker’s Mark spelt it without the e because they were aiming for a more premium market, and to distinguish themselves from other American distilleries. They spelt it the way the Scottish did to associate themselves with the perceived quality of Scotch whisky. It had nothing to do with tradition, and everything to do with marketing.

The story currently being pandered about suggests that the Irish unifying e was adopted in the 1920s. The whisky world was a mess from the Irish War of Independence and American prohibition. The Irish industry wanted to separate themselves from column distilled blended scotch whisky (believing their pot still was more traditional—they were right), and fraudulent whisky made outside of the country being sold as Irish whisky. The spelling was adopted by the few remaining Irish distilleries as a point of distinction from the rest of the market (sounding familiar?).

Still, Fionnan O’Conner (author of A Glass Apart that takes a historic look at the industry) notes that while Dublin brands added the e, many smaller pot still distilleries ignored the extra vowel up to the mid 1900s.

The e, more than anything, is a typical story in the whisky world—it’s all about marketing. I can’t speak to the Irish pride that comes with the spelling of the word, or American for that matter, but language is as diverse as there are cultures. It’s certainly true that in more recent history, the e is synonymous with Ireland.

I’ve had comments on this website suggesting I should be inclusive of the e when speaking of the Irish. This is something I used to do, but have fallen out of practice of doing. I’m Canadian. We tend to spell whisky without an e. We also spell colour with the u, but much of our word choices are more American (we use elevator, instead of lift, for example).

Either way, Mark Reynier was never one to stir away from controversy, and so his Irish distillery will spell whisky the original way. If you care, start your petitions now, before the first labels get printed early next year. If you think his spelling of whisky at Waterford Distillery is maddening, just wait until you see how he spells terroir.

You can listen to my interview with Mark Reynier and his new distillery, Waterford Distillery, on The Whisky Topic.

Let’s take a stroll through memory lane with a bunch of not-so-old Irish whiskies spelt correctly: