TWO HISTORICAL FALLACIES: HEATHER BEER AND UISGE BEITHE. 21 



might be considered their natural sugar. Neither gave, any evidence of fermentation,, 

 while a parallel experiment with the same honey solution and ordinary yeast fermented 

 successfully. 



A supposititious and fabulous stimulant is also said to be procurable from the sap 

 of the birch tree. So convinced are many persons of the possibility of the forma- 

 tion of such a liquor that the} 7 maintain that the Gaelic for whisky, uisge beatha, 

 aqua vitae, is a corruption of uisge beithe, birch water. Hooker, in his British Flora,. 

 informs us that a wine is made from Betula Alba in Scotland, and other authorities 

 speak of its rich, sugary, plentiful spring sap which makes a beer, a wine, and a vinegar. 



As in the case of heather beer, the use of this sap is referred to old times. "At a 

 very remote period Highlanders made incisions in birch trees in spring, and collected 

 the juice which fermented and became a gentle stimulant " (Paper by a Supervisor of 

 Excise, Celtic Magazine, vol. xi. p. 381). "Most of us when boys have had our 

 favourite birch tree, and enjoyed the Jion, wine." 



A small matter delights boys. A native of Killin, in Perthshire, says that they 

 made fissures in birch trees and sucked the juice with their mouths. One fissure would 

 yield enough for a whole day. He used to go back and back to it. A deeper and wider 

 hole was scooped at the bottom of the cut in which the sap accumulated. Others 

 again peel the bark and scrape off and chew the white inner bark, which is very sappy. 

 This goes by the name of Snothach, which simply means the sap. Lightfoot gives the 

 following recipe, which, however, falls back on sugar for the source of the alcohol. He 

 settles the question of self-fermentation by hard boiling. He says : " In the beginning 

 of March, when the sap is rising, and before the leaves shoot out, bore holes in the 

 bodies of the larger trees and put fossets therein, made of elder stick with the pith taken 

 out, and then put any vessels under to receive the liquor. If the tree be large you may 

 tap it in four or five places at a time without hurting it, and thus from several trees 

 you gain several gallons of juice in a day. If you have not enough in one 

 day, bottle up close what you have till you get a sufficient quantity for your purpose, 

 but the sooner it is used the better. Boil the sap as long as any scum rises,, 

 skimming it all the time. To every gallon of liquor put four pounds of sugar and 

 boil it afterwards half an hour, skimming it well ; then put it into an open tub to 

 cool, and when cold run it into your cask ; when it has done working bung it up 

 close, and keep it three months. Then either bottle it off or draw it out of the 

 cask after it is a year old. This is a generous and agreeable liquor, and would be a 

 happy substitute in the room of the poisonous whisky" (Trans. Gael. Soc. Inv., 

 vol. vii. p. 136). 



This is one of the most imaginative prescriptions with the circumstance that has 

 been written. The generous liquor can only have been simple syrup. 



The method of gathering the sap, and the knowledge shown of the time for doing 

 so, limits exactly the practical knowledge of Lightfoot s informant. The birch sap does 

 not run when the leaf begins to bud : that is evidence of the cessation of the flow. 



