Whiskey & Whisky

Whiskey & Whisky (pronounced hwis-kee or wis-kee)

(1) An alcoholic liquor distilled from a fermented mash of cereals (the grains usually barley, rye, or corn) and typically containing 43-50% alcohol; the end product usually aged in oak barrels and sometimes a blend from various mixes.

(2) A drink of whiskey or whisky.

(3) Of, relating to, or resembling whiskey or whisky.

(4) A light gig or carriage (historical reference only).

(5) In international standards (as “w for whiskey”), the NATO, ICAO, ITU & IMO phonetic alphabet code for the letter “W” (familiar to many in the form WTF).

1715: A variant of usque,an abbreviation of usquebaugh, from the Irish uisce beatha (water of life) or the Scots Gaelic uisge-beatha (water of life), ultimately a translation of the Medieval Latin aqua vītae (water of life (originally an alchemical term for unrefined alcohol)).  The form whiskybae has been obsolete since the mid eighteenth century.  The Scots and Irish forms were from the Proto-Celtic udenskyos (water) + biwotos (life), from biwos(alive).  The Old Irish uisce (water) was from the primitive Indo-European ud-skio-, a suffixed form of the root wed- (water; wet); bethu (life), from the primitive Indo-European gwi-wo-tut-, a suffixed form of gwi-wo-, from the root gwei- (to live). The noun plurals are whiskies & whiskeys.  Although iskie bae had been known in the 1580s, it appears unrelated to usquebea (1706), the common form of which was uisge beatha which in 1715 became usquebaugh, then whiskeybaugh & whiskybae, the most familiar phonetic form of which evolved as “usky”, influencing the final spellings which remain whisky & whiskey.  Wisely, the Russians avoided the linguistic treadmill, the unchanging vodka freely translated as “little water”.

The Medieval Latin aqua vītae (water of life) had great appeal to those Europeans making drinks (especially distilled spirits).  In Sweden there was the cordial akvavit, the French called Brandy eau de vie and in Scotland and Ireland, the most popular liquor was called uisge beatha, all these forms meaning “water of life”.  The Gaelic variety was with both alacrity and enthusiasm embraced by the English, one noted champion and consumer being Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England 1509-1547) although given the fondness for strong drink long shown south of the border, it’s likely that even without the royal imprimatur, success would have anyway been assured and it was certainly guaranteed after 1541 when Henry dissolved the monasteries and with that one act, also the English monopoly on distilling enjoyed by the monks.  The spellings whisky and whiskey are used world-wide to distinguish regional drinks (Scotch whisky, Irish whiskey, bourbon whiskey etc) and the terms “Scotch” and “Bourbon” are common ellipticals for their types.  The adoption of the spelling “whiskey” in the US during the nineteenth century was unusual in that the usual US practice was to simplify things by removing a letter or two but it was technically an adoption of an older form rather than an innovation.   

John Walker & Sons, holders of the Royal Warrant, made Diamond Jubilee to mark the sixtieth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II in 2012.

Diamond Jubilee is a blend of grain and malt varieties, all of which were distilled in 1952, the year of Her Majesty's accession.  To further the connection, the whiskies were blended in two small casks made with oak from the Royal Estate at Sandringham and laid down at the Royal Lochnagar distillery close to Balmoral Castle.  The blend was bottled on 6 February 2012 (sixtieth anniversary of the accession) and released in a limited edition of sixty.  The list price was US$198,000.

Having a belt.  Crooked Hillary Clinton enjoys a shot of Crown Royal Bourbon Whiskey, Bronko's restaurant, Crown Point, Indiana, Saturday 12 April, 2008.

Scotch, Bourbon and Rye are all types of whiskey or whisky, both distilled liquors made from a fermented mash of cereal grains and aged in containers, traditionally of oak.  The most commonly used grains are corn, barley malt, rye, and wheat but what makes each type different is not only the grain but also the distilling process, the aging and critically, the water used.  Despite the widespread perception that there’s a clear rule about the application of “whisky” and “whiskey”, although there are conventions, the distinctions are not always absolute and the only reliable guide is what the maker chooses to print on the label.  As a general principle, (1) the spelling whiskey is common in the US & Ireland while whisky is used elsewhere and (2) all labelled as scotch is whisky while other types tend to be whiskeys.  However, in the US, the two spellings were used interchangeably until the mid-nineteenth century when whiskey began to predominate but it wasn’t until the widespread availability of style-guides in the late 1940s that US use became consistent, writers using whiskey as the accepted spelling for aged grain spirits made in the US and whisky for those distilled overseas.  Despite that, many American brands use whisky on their labels, and the Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits which sets out the legal regulations for spirits sold in the US, also uses whisky.  North of the border, the Canadians prefer whisky.  Within Scotland, the whisky that is locally made is called simply whisky, while everywhere else, (and in the UK regulations that govern its production), it’s almost always called “Scotch whisky” or "Scotch".  Anything made in Ireland is a whiskey whereas what’s distilled in Japan, in the style of the Scottish product, is whisky.

Lindsay Lohan advertising the (fictitious) Japanese chewing gum Number One Happy Whiskey Chew, filmed for the TV show Anger Management, March 2013.

Whiskey and whisky can be straight or blended, the former not mixed with anything or only with other whiskey from the same distiller and distillation period; the latter can include various combinations of whiskey products from different distillers and different distillation periods as well as other flavorings, such as fruit juice; blended whiskeys generally have a lighter flavor than the straight.  With Scotch whisky, the distinction is fourfold: (1) Pure Malt which is a spirit made solely from barley malt.  It’s an uncompromising taste, purer (and usually much more expensive) and more intense in flavour, with what the aficionados (who, like the “cork dorks” who “taste” wine have their own language of criticism) tend to describe pure malts in terms of their “personalities”.  Confusingly, a pure malt is not the same as a single malt and for this reason pure malts also received the denomination “vatted”, helping buyers to differentiate.  (2) The single malt differs from the pure in that the former has only the one malt, the result of a single distillation whereas a pure malt has at least four.  Single malts are almost always stronger but not necessarily more expensive than pure malts.  For those searching for some scientific reason to justify their fondness for single-malt whiskies, there is some research which suggests consumption may lead to a reduction in internal cancers, apparently because single-malts are high in ellagic acid, an antioxidant thought to absorb rogue cancer cells.  Critics note a more effective might be to eat more fruit, higher still in ellagic acid but, in typical academic fashion, all agree “more research is required”. (3) Grain Whisky is a simpler Scotch, produced using only the distillation of grains such as rye, wheat or corn and can thus be produced much more quickly.  The grain whiskies are much cheaper and the manufacturing process is commonly used throughout the world.  (4) Blended Scotch is the most consumed.  Produced using a combination of grains and single malts, blends deliberately are mixed to be both affordable and accessible, the taste perhaps less challenging than pure or single malt Scotch, both of which have a minimum maturation time of 12-15 years while a blended Scotch can be ready in eight.  However, at the upper end of the market, there are blends matured for 24 years.

By their colors they shall be known.

Scotch is a whisky made from grain, primarily barley which is malted and then heated over a peat fire.  There is much UK legislation which governs the definitions of various categories and marketing of Scotch whisky and it can’t be so-named unless wholly produced and bottled in Scotland.  Bourbon is a type of whiskey which was first produced in Kentucky and regulations demand it must be based on a mix with at least 51% mash from corn in its production.  It uses a sour mash process, so-called because the mash is fermented with yeast and includes a portion from a mash that has already been fermented.  For a whiskey to be called bourbon, it must be made in the United States but it’s a myth it can come only from Kentucky or Tennessee.  Rye uses either a rye mash or one with a mix of a rye and malt and while US regulations demand a minimum 51% rye content, other jurisdictions, such as Canada, don’t set a lower limit.  Bourbon is one of some twenty defined categories of American whiskey and it’s thought the name is derived from Bourbon Street in New Orleans, on the basis that the name was used first in 1854 while the claim of a link to Bourbon County in Kentucky wasn’t asserted until twenty-odd years later.

Glenfiddich 1937 Rare Collection.  Laid down before the Second World War, all bottles of this came from a single barrel held at the firm’s Dufftown warehouse, the last filled in 2001.  A auction in Scotland in 2016, one sold for US$87,000 but another changed hands in the US in 2020 for US$120,00, a handy appreciation of about 40%.

Whisky and whiskey, like rum, gin and other spirits, have a history of involvement with fiscal systems.  In eighteenth century Pennsylvania, whiskey was both commodity and currency, used for cooking, medicine and drinking as well as being a store of value and a means of exchange and there began the Whiskey Rebellion (1791-1794), a violent protest against the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government.  The new tax became law in 1791, levied to generate revenue so the debt incurred during the War of Independence could be serviced and to call it the “whiskey tax” was misleading because it applied to all distilled spirits, but consumption of American whiskey had greatly increased while rum production hadn’t recovered its pre-war levels so the name stuck.

Lindsay Lohan leaving the Whisky Mist night club, London, June 2014.

Less violent was the Whisky War (also called the Liquor War), conducted (1984-2022) in gentlemanly fashion between Canada and Denmark, two of the world’s more civilized nations.  The Whiskey War was “fought” over a border dispute concerning Hans Island, a previously obscure barren and uninhabited lump of rock (1.3 km² (½ sq mi)) which sits in the Kennedy Channel between Greenland (a Danish territory) and Canada’s Ellesmere Island.  The actual border had been left unresolved in 1973 when other matters in the region were resolved but in 1984, Canadian soldiers provoked a border incident by raising the national flag and leaving a bottle of Canadian Whiskey.  In retaliation, the Danish Minister of Greenland Affairs visited the island, respectfully lowering and folding the Canadian flag, raising the Danish standard, taking the whiskey and leaving a bottle of Cognac.  The flag ceremonies and exchanges of bottles of liquor went on until 2005 when both countries agreed on a process to settle the dispute.  Remarkably, this took until 2022 when it was announced a border had been agreed, dividing the inhospitable place equally between the Canadian territory of Nunavut and the Danish constituent country of Greenland.  As geographers and cartographers updated their records, they were pleased to note the historically unusual side-effect the transaction meant Canada and Denmark now shared a land border whereas before, each had a border only with one other country (respectively the US and Germany).

Lindsay Lohan advertising the (fictitious) Japanese chewing gum Number One Happy Whiskey Chew, filmed for the TV show Anger Management, March 2013.  It was interesting to note that what was notionally a Japanese product was labelled "whiskey" rather than "whisky" which is the usual form in the Japanese domestic market.  That may have been something dictated by the sitcom's plot. 

Whisk

Whisk (pronounced wisk or hwisk)

(1) To move with a rapid, sweeping stroke.

(2) To sweep (dust, crumbs etc, or a surface) with a whisk broom, brush, or the like.

(3) To draw, snatch or carry etc; a generalized term meaning to move or do something nimbly or rapidly (often as “whisked away”, “whisked off” etc).

(4) To whip (eggs, cream etc.) to a froth using a whisk or other beating device.

(5) The an act of whisking; a rapid, sweeping stroke; light, rapid movement.

(6) As whisk broom, a device topped with a small cluster of grass, straw, hair or the like, used especially for brushing.

(7) A kitchen utensil, in the form of a bunch of (usually metal wire, plastic strands or (in the Far East) bamboo) loops held together in a handle and used for beating, blending or whipping eggs, cream; making souffles etc.  Modern whisks can also be electro-mechanical and “non-stick” whisks use a Teflon coating.

(8) The by-product of something which has been “whisked away”.

(9) A special plane used by coopers for evening a barrel’s chimes (the curved, outermost edge or rim at the top and bottom ends of the barrel, typically wider and thicker than the rest of the staves (the vertical wooden planks that form the sides)).

(10) In fashion, a kind of cape forming part of a woman's dress (sometimes detachable).

(11) In some card games, the act of sweeping the cards off the table after a trick has been won.

1325–1375: From the Middle English & Scots wysk (rapid sweeping movement), from the earlier Scots verbs wisk & quhisk, from the Old English wiscian (to plait) & weoxian (to clean with brush), from a Scandinavian source comparable to the Old Norse & Norwegian visk (wisp), the Swedish viska besom & wisp (to whisk (off)) and the Danish visk & viske (to wipe, rub, sponge) and related to the Middle Dutch wisch, the Dutch wis, the Old High German wisken (to wipe) & wisc (wisp of hay), the German Wisch, the Latin virga (rod, switch) & viscus (entrails), the Czech vechet (a wisp of straw), the Lithuanian vizgéti (to tremble), the Czech vechet (wisp of straw) and the Sanskrit वेष्क (veṣka) (noose) all thought from the Proto-Germanic wiskaz & wiskō (bundle of hay, wisp), from the primitive Indo-European weys- or weis (to turn; to twist).  The un-etymological wh-, noted since the 1570s, probably developed because it was expressive of the sound typically generated by the act of “whisking” something; the same evolution was noted in whip and the onomatopoeic whack and whoosh.  The device used in preparing food (implement for beating eggs etc) was first documented as “a whisk” in the 1660s although cooks had presumably been using such things for many years.  The verb developed in the late fifteenth century, the transitive sense from the 1510s while the familiar meaning “to brush or sweep (something) lightly over a surface” dates from the 1620s.  Whisk & whisking are nouns & verbs and whisked is a verb; the noun plural is whisks.

Variations on a theme of whisk.

Whisk is (almost) wholly unrelated to whisky & whiskey.  Dating from 1715, whisky was a variant of usque,an abbreviation of usquebaugh, from the Irish uisce beatha (water of life) or the Scots Gaelic uisge-beatha (water of life), ultimately a translation of the Medieval Latin aqua vītae (water of life (originally an alchemical term for unrefined alcohol)).  The form whiskybae has been obsolete since the mid eighteenth century.  The Scots and Irish forms were from the Proto-Celtic udenskyos (water) + biwotos (life), from biwos(alive).  The Old Irish uisce (water) was from the primitive Indo-European ud-skio-, a suffixed form of the root wed- (water; wet); bethu (life), from the primitive Indo-European gwi-wo-tut-, a suffixed form of gwi-wo-, from the root gwei- (to live). The noun plurals are whiskies & whiskeys.  Although iskie bae had been known in the 1580s, it appears unrelated to usquebea (1706), the common form of which was uisge beatha which in 1715 became usquebaugh, then whiskeybaugh & whiskybae, the most familiar phonetic form of which evolved as “usky”, influencing the final spellings which remain whisky & whiskey.  Wisely, the Russians avoided the linguistic treadmill, the unchanging vodka freely translated as “little water”.  The exception was the “whisky”, a small carriage (technically a “light gig” to coach-builders) which was from the verb whisk, the idea being something in which one was “whisked quickly around” the lightweight carriages being faster than most.  Chefs also caution home cooks not to confuse “whisky butter” (A concoction made of whisky, butter & sugar) with “whisked butter” which is butter which has been whisked.

Lindsay Lohan Oreos

Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap (1998).

Whether it was already something widely practiced isn’t known but Lindsay Lohan is credited with introducing to the world the culinary novelty Oreos & peanut butter in The Parent Trap.  According to the director, it was added to the script “…for no reason other than it sounded weird and some cute kid would do it."  Like some other weirdnesses, the combination has a cult following and for those who enjoy peanut butter but suffer arachibutyrophobia (the morbid fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one’s mouth), Tastemade’s have provided a recipe for Lindsay Lohan-style Oreos with a preparation time (including whisking) of 2 hours.  They take 20 minutes to cook and in this mix there are 8 servings (scale ingredients up to increase the number of servings).

Ingredients

2 cups flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (plus more for dusting)
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
1 ¼ cups unsalted butter (at room temperature)
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Powdered sugar, for dusting

Filling Ingredients

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup unsweetened smooth peanut butter
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
A pinch of kosher salt (omit if using salted peanut butter)

Filling Instructions

(1) With a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, the butter & peanut butter until creamy.

(2) Gradually add powdered sugar and beat to combine, then beat in vanilla and salt.

Whisking the mix.

Instructions

(1) Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

(2) In small bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder & salt.

(3) In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Mix in the vanilla extract. With the mixer running on low speed, add the flour mixture and beat until just combined (it should remain somewhat crumbly).

(4) Pour mixture onto a work surface and knead until it’s “all together”; wrap half in plastic wrap and place in refrigerator.

(5) Lightly dust surface and the top of the dough with a 1:1 mixture of cocoa powder and powdered sugar.

(6) Working swiftly and carefully, roll out dough to a ¼-½ inch (6-12 mm) thickness and cut out 2 inch (50 mm) rounds.  Transfer them to the baking sheets, 1 inch (25 mm) apart (using a small offset spatula helps with this step). Re-roll scraps and cut out more rounds, the repeat with remaining half of the dough.

(7) Bake cookies until the tops are no longer shiny ( about 20 minutes), then cool on pan for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack completely to cool.

(8) To assemble, place half the cookies on a plate or work surface.

(9) Pipe a blob of filling (about 2 teaspoons) onto the tops of each of these cookies and then place another cookie on top, pressing slightly but not to the extent filled oozes from the sides.

(10) Refrigerate for a few minutes to allow the filling to firm up.  Store in an air-tight container in refrigerator.

The manufacturer embraced the idea of peanut butter Oreos and has released versions, both with the classic cookie and a peanut butter & jelly (jam) variation paired with its “golden wafers”.  As well as Lindsay Lohan’s contribution, Oreos have attracted the interest of mathematicians.  Nabisco in 1974 introduced the Double Stuf Oreo, the clear implication being a promise the variety contained twice crème filling supplied in the original.  However, a mathematician undertook the research and determined Double Stuf Oreos contained only 1.86 times the volume of filling of a standard Oreo.  Despite that, the company survived the scandal and the Double Stuf Oreo’s recipe wasn’t adjusted.

Scandalous in its own way was that an April 2022 research paper published in the journal Physics of Fluids wasn’t awarded that year’s Ig Nobel Prize for physics, the honor taken by Frank Fish, Zhi-Ming Yuan, Minglu Chen, Laibing Jia, Chunyan Ji & Atilla Incecik, for their admittedly ground-breaking (or perhaps water-breaking) work in explaining how ducklings manage to swim in formation.  More deserving surely were Crystal Owens, Max Fan, John Hart & Gareth McKinley who introduced to physics the discipline of Oreology (the construct being Oreo + (o)logy).  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism et al).  Oreology is the study of the flow and fracture of sandwich cookies and the research proved it is impossible to split the cream filling of an Oreo cookie down the middle.

An Oreo on a rheometer.

The core finding in Oreology was that the filling always adheres to one side of the wafer, no matter how quickly one or both cookies are twisted.  Using a rheometer (a laboratory instrument used to measure the way in which a viscous fluid (a liquid, suspension or slurry) flows in response to applied forces), it was determined creme distribution upon cookie separation by torsional rotation is not a function of rate of rotation, creme filling height level, or flavor, but was mostly determined by the pre-existing level of adhesion between the creme and each wafer.  The research also noted that were there changes to the composition of the filling (such as the inclusion of peanut butter) would influence the change from adhesive to cohesive failure and presumably the specifics of the peanut butter chosen (smooth, crunchy, extra-crunchy, un-salted (although the organic varieties should behave in a similar way to their mass-market equivalents)) would have some effect because the fluid dynamics would change.  The expected extent of the change would be appear to be slight but until further research is performed, this can’t be confirmed.  The 33rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will (as a webcast) happen on Thursday 14 September 2023, at 18:00 pm (US eastern time).

Manhattan

Manhattan (pronounced man-hat-n or muhn-hat-n)

(1) An island in New York City (NYC) surrounded by the Hudson, East and Harlem rivers, 13½ miles (22 km) in length, 2½ miles (4 km) across at its widest and 22¼ square miles (58 km² in area).  Technically, it’s an ellipsis of Manhattan Island and in certain legal documents, cartography and for formal purposes it’s described also as Manhattan Island.

(2) One of the five boroughs of New York City, approximately co-extensive with Manhattan Island and coterminous with New York County.  It contains the business district of NYC, its financial centre (Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) etc and many of the businesses associated with the fashion industry (Fifth Avenue and environs) and the art business (Greenwich Village).

(3) A cocktail drink consisting of four parts whisky, one part vermouth, and a dash of bitters.

Pre 1600: From the earlier Manna-hata (recorded by Dutch settlers & military personnel), from its name in Unami, the Algonquian language of the Lenape people (self-described as Lenni-Lenape (the original people)) who were the island’s inhabitants when European settlement began.  The research by linguistic anthropologists was inconclusive and there are a number of suggestions regarding the origin of the name: (1) a compound of the Unami mënatay (island) or the Munsee munahan + another element; (2) because the island was once a wooded area with Hickory trees yielding timber suitable for making bows, the early forms Manna-hatta & Mannahachtink were spellings of manaháhtaan (place for gathering the wood to make bows) with the related locative form being manaháhteenk, the construct thus Munsee manah- (gather) + -aht (bow) + -aan (place); (3) the “island of many hills” & (4) “the island where we all became intoxicated”.  Manhattan is a noun & proper noun, manhattanite & manhattanese are adjectives, manhattanism is a noun, manhattanize manhattanizing & manhattanized are verbs and manhattanism & manhattanism are nouns; the noun plural is manhattans.  Modern style guides suggest that even when forms are derived from the proper noun, there’s no need for an initial capital although traditionalists will insist.

What is now New York’s borough of Manhattan was in 1626 named New Amsterdam by colonists from the Dutch Republic who, two years earlier, had established a trading post (in what is now Lower Manhattan).  After some of the squabbles and negotiations during which Europeans re-drew the maps which reflect their arrangements even today, the territory and its surroundings in 1664 came under English control in 1664 and the city, based on Manhattan, was the capital of the United States between 1785-1790.  Although the exact date on which “Manhattan” became the common descriptor for the island among Europeans, the consensus is it would have been sometime in the mid-seventeenth century.  The cocktail named Manhattan was certainly being served in the 1870s but why it gained the name or just when the first was mixed isn’t known although there are a number of imaginative tales, none supported by evidence.  What is thought most likely is that it was either served in an establishment in the locality or somewhere close seeking to trade of the association with the name.

Lilo in Soho: The Manhattan apartment where Lindsay Lohan lived in 2013, Mercer Street, Soho.

The standard adjective is Manhattanite (of or from, Manhattan) which replaced the earlier Manhattanese which, although obsolete, is sometime still used as a jocular term (to describe a certain style of speck thought associated with financial traders although it was a hardly distinct form).  The noun Manhattanism (the style of architecture and urban design associated with skyscrapers to enable high population densities in a limited space) was a coining of architectural criticism, the companion verbs being Manhattanize, Manhattanizing & Manhattanized; the process was Manhattanization.  In architectural criticism, Manhattanization was something neither wholly good or bad and depended for its reception on where it was used.  Where it was appropriate and added to urban utility, it would be praised if done well but where it destroyed something of social or architectural value, it was derided.

The Manhattan Project's second detonation of an atomic bomb: the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, 6 August 1945.

The Manhattan Project which developed the first atomic weapons was so-named because the army component of the operation was under the control of the engineering branch and it was the army which was most involved in the initial planning stages which involved the acquisition of land and the physical building of the facilities which would house the research and production staff.  The army’s original project name was “Manhattan Engineer District” simply because that was where their offices were located and, apparently because the US Postal Service used the same name for the workshops of its telephone technicians, it was decided was “Manhattan Engineer District” would be a suitably vague codename and one unlikely to attract attention.  It thus replaced the earlier US A-bomb code name (Development of Substitute Materials) and absorbed the earlier British research project (Tube Alloys).

The Manhattan cocktail

Some cocktails are intimidating not because of what they are but because of what’s involved in their preparation, thus the attraction of the Manhattan cocktail which is easy-to-make drink and needs but three ingredients: whiskey, sweet Vermouth and aromatic bitters.

Ingredients

(1) 2 oz Whiskey: A Manhattan can be made with either Rye or Bourbon, most historically preferring Rye Whiskey because it’s thought to be “spicier”.

(2) 1 oz Sweet Vermouth: Vermouth has something of an aura because it’s vital to both Manhattans and Martinis but it’s just a flavored and fortified wine and it’s the harmonious interaction Rye and Sweet Vermouth which accounts for most choosing Rye.  The garnishing of a Manhattan with a brandied or Maraschino cherry is optional.

(3) 2 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters: A timeless classic and an aromatic, alcoholic infusions of various herbs and spices, neither the recipe or the distinctive oversized label have changed for well over a century.  One drop is so potent it can alter the character of anything to which it’s added and some even recommend a dash in fruit salad (the other faction advocating a few drops of Tabasco sauce for “sharpness”).

Instructions

(1) Chill a champagne coupe, martin glass or a lowball in the freezer or fill it with ice.

(2) Add all ingredients into a mixing glass filled with ice and stir until the drink is chilled. Typically, that takes no more than 20-30 seconds depending on the temperature of the ingredients and the nature of the ice.  A Manhattan must only ever be stirred; they are never shaken.

(3) Strain the drink into the chilled (and empty) Nick & Nora glass and (optionally) garnish the drink with a Maraschino cherry speared on a cocktail stick.

Purists like to stick to the classics but variations of the Manhattan have over the years been concocted:

A Black Manhattan replaces the Sweet Vermouth with Averna Amaro, a complex liqueur which delivers an aromatic experience.  It’s one of those drinks which need to be breathed in for some time before drinking.

In a Dry Manhattan, Dry Vermouth is used.  Most find it an acquired taste and described it as a “harder” drink,

The Rob Roy is known by some as the Scotch Manhattan and obviously, instead of Bourbon or Rye, it’s made on a Scotch Whisky base.  The aficionados of this kink seem all to recommend a blended Scotch rather than a pure malt.

The “perfect” in a Perfect Manhattan uses the word in its mathematical sense, the recipe calling for a 50/50 split between Dry & Sweet Vermouth.  The difference is said to be “very nuanced” and the choice of whiskey will notably change the experience.

Lace

Lace (pronounced leys)

(1) A net-like, delicate & ornamental fabric made of threads by hand or machine and formed historically from cotton or silk (modern forms also using synthetics), woven almost always in an open web of symmetrical patterns and figures .

(2) A cord or string for holding or drawing together (shoes, garments, protective coverings etc) as when passed through holes in opposite edges.

(3) An ornamental cord or braid, especially of gold or silver, used to decorate military and other uniforms, hats etc.

(4) A small amount of alcoholic liquor or other substance added to food or drink.

(5) A snare or gin, especially one made of interwoven cords; a net.

(6) In the illicit drug trade, to add a (usually) small quantity of another substance to that being offered for sale (also sometimes deliberately undertaken by users for various purposes).

(7) To fasten, draw together, or compress by or as if by means of a lace.

(8) To pass (a cord, leather strip etc) through holes usually intended for the purpose.

(9) To interlace or intertwine.

(10) For decorative purposes, to adorn or trim with lace.

(11) To lash, beat, or thrash.

(12) To compress the waist of a person by drawing tight the laces of a corset (used descriptively with undergarments like shapewear which don’t use laces).

(13) To mark or streak, as with color.

(14) To be fastened with a lace:

(15) To attack (usually verbally but the term is rarely applied to physical violence), often in the form “laced into”.

(16) As the acronym LACE, Used variously including the liquid air cycle engine (a propulsion engine used in space travel), the Luton Analogue Computing Engine (a computer used by the UK military) and the Lunar Atmospheric Composition Experiment (a research project conducted on the final Apollo Moon mission).

1175–1225: From the Middle English noun lace, laace, laz & las (cord made of braided or interwoven strands of silk etc), from the Old French laz & las (a net, noose, string, cord, tie, ribbon, or snare), from the Vulgar Latin lacium & laceum, from the Classical Latin laqueum from laqueus (a noose or snare).  The Latin was the source also of the Italian laccio, the Spanish lazo and the English lasso, a trapping and hunting term, probably from the Italic base laq- (to ensnare) and thus comparable with the Latin lacere (to entice).  The verb was from the Middle English lasen & lacen, from the Old & Middle French lacer, lacier, lasser & lachier (which endures in Modern French as lacer), from the Latin laqueāre (to enclose in a noose, to trap).  Derived forms have been coined as required including enlace, lace-up, lacemaker, laceman, self-lacing, unlace, re-laced & well-laced although de-laced seems to be exclusive to the IT industry where it has a specific application in video displays (interlaced, non-interlaced and all that).  Lace is a noun & verb; lacer is a noun, lacing is a verb, lacelike & lacy are adjectives and laced is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is laces.

Vulcan Surprising Venus and Mars in Bed before an Assembly of the Gods (1679), oil on canvas by Johann Heiss (1640-1704).

The metal net weaved by the god Vulcan was in renaissance art called “Vulcan’s lace”, reflecting the general use to describe snares, fish nets etc and vividly it was described in both the Odyssey (the Greek text from the eighth or seventh century BC attributed to Homer) and Ovid's (the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD) Metamorphoses (Transformations; 8 AD).  The god Helios had happened upon the gods Venus and Mars in a passionate, adulterous liaison and he rushed to inform god Vulcan of his wife's faithlessness.  Enraged, Vulcan forged a net of bronze so fine it was invisible to the naked eye and carefully he place the lace over Venus’ bed so he could entrap the lustful pair at their next tryst.  It didn’t take long and thus ensnared, Vulcan called upon all of the other Olympians to witness the scene, the cuckolded Vulcan making his case before his peers.

Train of lace wedding gown.

Because of the method of construction, the word lace evolved by the turn of the fourteenth century to describe “a net, noose or snare”, simultaneously with it coming to mean “a piece of cord used to draw together the edges of slits or openings in an article of clothing”, a concept which survives in the modern shoelace although in Middle English it was used most frequently in the sense of “a cord or thread used particularly to bind or tie”.  It was used of fishing lines and (especially poetically) of the hangman’s rope and noose, the struts and beams used in architecture, and in the sixteenth century “death's lace” was the icy grip said to envelop the dying while “love’s lace” was the romantic feeling said to cloak youth enchanted with each other.  By the 1540s, improved technology meant increased production of “ornamental cords & braids” which influenced the meaning “fabric of fine threads in a patterned ornamental open net” becoming the predominant use of the English word and the trend continued because by the late nineteenth century a review of catalogues revealed dozens of varieties of commercially available lace.  Noted first in 1928 was an interesting use as an adjective of “lace-curtain” as a piece of class snobbery; it meant “middle class” or “lower-class with middle-class pretensions”) although it was often used in US cities of Irish-Americans, so it may also be thought both an ethnic and anti-Catholic slur.

Casting a practiced eye: Lindsay Lohan assessing a lace-up boot.

The verb developed from the noun and emerged so closely most etymologists consider it a concurrent form, the original sense being “fasten clothing etc with laces and ties”, a direct adoption of the sense of the Old French lacier “entwine, interlace, fasten with laces, lace on; entrap, ensnare” developed from the noun las or laz (net, noose, string, cord).  From the early fourteenth century it was oral shorthand meaning “tighten (a garment) by pulling its laces” and by at least the late sixteenth century (though probably earlier) it conveyed the idea of “adorning with lace”, applied both to furniture and fashion.  The meaning “to intermix (one’s coffee etc.) with a dash of liquor (typically brandy or whisky)” emerged in the 1670s, a product doubtlessly of the spike in popularity of coffee houses.  That sense was originally used also of sugar (from the notion of “to ornament or trim something with lace” while the meaning “beat, lash, mark with the lash” dates from the 1590s, the idea being the pattern of streaks left by the lash; from the early nineteenth century this idea was extended also to verbal assaults (usually as “laced into).  With his punctilious attention to such things, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) in his A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) noted “laced mutton” was “an old word for a whore”.  The most enduring use is probably the shoelace (also as shoe-lace although the old form “shoe string” seems to be extinct). The “length of lace used to draw together and fasten the sides of a shoe via eyelets”, the noun dating from the 1640s.  Also extinct is another older word for the thong or lace of a shoe or boot: the Middle English sho-thong which was from the Old English scoh-þwang.

1997 Toyota Century V12.  Cars sold on the Japanese domestic market (JDM) are famous for frequently being adorned with what are known as Japanese car seat doilies.  While most are mass produced from modern synthetics and appear in things like taxis, some used in up-market cars are genuine hand-made lace.  Interestingly, while Toyota created the Lexus brand because of the perceived “prestige deficit” suffered by the Toyota name in overseas markets, for decades the Century (sold only in the JDM) has been supplied to the Imperial household.

Lindsay Lohan in lace top, 2004.

The adjective lace-up dates (adj.) from 1831 and was originally a cobblers’ description of boots, directly from the verbal phrase “lace up”; in the mid-twentieth century it was re-purposed in the form “laced-up” to imply someone was “repressed, overly conservative and restricted in their attitudes” the notion being of someone (a woman of course” who never “loosened her stays” with all that implies, the significance being the use emerged decades after corsets had ceased to be worn, the suggestion being a throwback to what were imagined to be Victorian (nineteenth century) attitudes towards personal morality.  This adaptation of lace wasn’t entirely new.  The early fifteenth century adjective “strait-laced” referenced stays or bodices “made close and tight” which was originally purely descriptive but soon came to be adopted figuratively to suggest someone “over-precise, prudish, strict in manners or morals”.  The adjective lacy (which differs from lace-like in that the former references extent, the latter resemblance) and dates from 1804; it’s wholly unrelated to the given name Lacey (which although technically gender-neutral is now conferred predominately on girls and was of Old French origin meaning “from Lacy (or Lassy)” and was originally the surname of French noblemen, the De Lasi, from the Normandy region; it reached the British Isles during the Norman conquest (1066).  The trade of laceman (one who deals in laces) was known since the 1660s while the necklace (“a flexible ornament worn round the neck”) was first so described in the 1580s although such things had been worn by both men & women for thousands of years.  A gruesome use emerged in Apartheid era South Africa during the 1980s where “necklacing” was a form of extrajudicial summary execution which involved drenching a car tyre in a mixture of oil and petrol (or pure diesel) and forcing it around a victim's chest and arms, then setting it alight.  Although never officially condoned by the African National Congress (ANC), it was widely used in black townships as a form of public execution of black Africans suspected of collaborating with the white minority government.  Victims were said to have been “necklaced” and the practice spread elsewhere in Africa, to South Asia and the Caribbean.

Real Housemom’s Irish Coffee Royale

Ingredients

2 oz brandy or cognac
2 oz Irish cream
4 oz brewed coffee (served strong)
Granulated sugar crystals (optional and nor recommended)

Instructions

Warm brandy and Irish cream in small saucepan over low heat, then combine with coffee.  A small amount of sugar can be added but there is sweetness in the Irish cream and the sugar tends to detract from the taste.  The difference between an Irish coffee and a coffee royale is that the former is laced with Irish Whiskey, the latter with brandy or cognac.