The name whisky is a transformation of the word usquebaugh, itself a transformation of the Scottish Gaelic uisge beatha spelled uisce beatha in Irish Gaelic, literally meaning the "water of life".
Whisky has been produced in Scotland for hundreds of years. It is generally agreed that Dalriadan Scots monks brought distillation with them when they came to Caledonia to convert the Picts to Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. Friar John Cor recorded the first known batch of scotch whisky June 1st 1495.
The origins of vodka (and of its name) cannot be traced definitively, but it is believed to have originated in either Poland or Russia. Surprisingly, until recent times there were no serious historical research on vodka as a product. Nearly all research on vodka was in fact research of drinking and selling vodka, rather than of manufacturing vodka. Paradoxically, the weakening of the Soviet Union somewhat changed this situation (but the conclusive word is yet to be said). The second half of the 1970s witnessed two massive attacks on the priority and rights of the Soviet Union to market liquors named "vodka". The first assault was a long the lines that the Russian Revolution "discontinued" Russia's trademark for vodka, which was naturally" transferred to emigrated manufacturers of vodka, Smirnoff in particular, because of prohibition by Soviets, so that officially the Soviet Union started manufacturing vodka in 1923.
This was refuted fairly easily. The second assault, by Poland, was more serious, and the Soviet Union undertook the historical research to substantiate Russia's priority, which was completed by 1979, and in 1982 the international arbitrage considered it convincing enough to grant the USSR the priority in vodka as Russian original alcoholic beverage and recognized the Soviet trademark motto "Only vodka from Russia is genuine Russian vodka".
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