I confess: I used to be a whisky snob. I always spelled whisky without the “e” — as they do in Scotland, land of elegant single malts. I was willing to acknowledge that Ireland has begun to distill a few…

Scotland is a small country,” the artist Ian Gray said over drinks at a pub in Edinburgh recently. “Yet wherever I go around the world I find it is incredibly well known for its kilts, its monsters, and its whisky.”…

This essay appeared in the November 2005 issue of The American Spectator. To subscribe, please click here. IN YOUTH, ONE BECOMES ACQUAINTED with the pleasures life offers. The rest of one’s days are spent attempting to resist those pleasures —…