[Wikepedia on USQUEBAUGH.]

WORD HISTORY Many connoisseurs of fine whiskey wouldn't dream of contaminating their libations with water, but they really can't avoid it. Not only is water used in distilling whiskey, but the words whiskey and water share a common Indo-European root, *wed–, “water, wet.” This root could appear in several guises, as *wed–, *wod–, or *ud–. Water is a native English word that goes back by way of prehistoric Common Germanic *watar to the Indo-European suffixed form *wod-ōr, with an o. Whiskey is a shortened form of usquebaugh, which English borrowed from Irish Gaelic uisce beatha and Scottish Gaelic uisge beatha. This compound descends from Old Irish uisce, “water,” and bethad, “of life,” and meaning literally “water of life.” (It thus meant the same thing as the name of another drink, aquavit, which comes from Latin aqua vītae, “water of life.”) Uisce comes from the Indo-European suffixed form *ud-skio–. Finally, the name of another alcoholic drink, vodka, comes into English from Russian, where it means literally “little water,” as it is a diminutive of voda, “water”—a euphemism if ever there was one. Voda comes from the same Indo-European form as English water, but is differently suffixed: *wod-ā. Whiskey, water, and vodka—etymology can mix a potent cocktail.

 
 What they haven't pointed out is that it's Scotch 'whisky' and everyone else, Irish included calls it 'whiskey'.  Have a look at the label on Bushmills.....  The home distilled version has different names.  In the US it's White Lighning', in Scotland it's often called 'black pot' after the peat smoked iron kettle used to boil the mash.  The Barlick version from Coates in the old days came in Lanry Bottles with the original label on!

Doc,there is great satisfaction by brewing your own beer, wine etc, apart from the massive savings, you can alter the taste to suit your pallet, this takes time of course, my downfall was impatience, about thirtyfive years ago i brewed some lager, the home brewing lark was just in it`s infancy as far as buying kit was concerned, so making do was the order of the day,as Stanley says previously cleanliness, hygene, is the thing, anyway to get back to my story, i had this lager on the go for about a fortnight in a large plastic container to which i kept adding some sugar, the barrel was expanding with the pressure building up inside, i knew this would help give the lager a bit of life... i was on shift work at the time and came home on a friday at 11 pm. i was gagging for a pint so i decided to road test my home brew!!! i then went to bed, i remember waking up with an overwhelming need for a pee i realy did not have so much to drink as i can remember, but i know it was super stuff, and the next thing i remember was Mary, my wife, shaking my shoulder to waken me up, to my horror and lasting embarrassment, i was sat on my sons training potty asleep, can you begin to imagine how i must have looked, thank god there were no digital cameras in those days, so just a word of caution Doc tread your grapes very carefully....

I hadn't made it Mags, it was Gordons but it put you to sleep.

I got mail from Maz this morning:  One of our local breweries pumps water from the aquifer to produce it's beer. They also sell the water at an outlet at the brewery for 'home brewers' to use to make their own beer. There is always a line up....day and night...of cars pulling in to buy the water! Proceeds from the sale of the water go to charity.I don't know what is so special about the water, but it is very much in demand. You must bring your own container.
Just thought it may interest someone to see these pics.
Cheers MAZ