8 Whisky Facts for When You’re Sick of Talking About the Weather

Summer may be over, but don’t despair. It’s now the season of hot toddies, warming drams under cozy blankets and the crunchiest of leaves just waiting to be stepped on. Autumn is one spicy season.

So invite your mates around (perhaps those in your newly-founded whisky club?), pour a dram, have the obligatory ‘I miss summer’ chat for the final time this year, and open up the part of your mind that stores your PIN number.

You’re going to want to remember these whisky facts.

1. 41 bottles of Scotch whisky are shipped out of Scotland every second. That’s over 1.2 billion bottles a year for those attempting the math.

2. We produce 21 million litres of spirit each year at The Glenlivet Distillery.

3. Over 20 million casks of whisky lie maturing in warehouses across Scotland. That’s almost four for every person living there.

4. In some Latin American countries, they say ‘whisky’ instead of ‘cheese’ when posing for a photo.

5. Whisky can only age in wooden casks, once it’s in the bottle that’s it. So a 12 Year Old bottled in 1956 will still taste exactly the same now as it did way back in the ‘50s.

6. When prohibition was introduced in the United States, whisky was exempt due to its supposed ‘medicinal properties’. So when Winston Churchill visited in 1931, he had a doctor prescribe him “the use of alcoholic spirits especially at meal times”.

7. Nikola Tesla drank whisky every day because he believed it would make him live to 150. He only made it to 86.

8. Ron Burgundy was a fan of The Glenlivet, ordering “three fingers of Glenlivet with a little bit of pepper and some cheese.” You can also catch our famous dram in The Mummy, Grosse Pointe Blank and Birdcage.