Uisge Beatha Whisky prices compared

About the name: uisge beatha

Uisge beatha is Scottish Gaelic for 'water of life', the root of the word whisky. Why a UK whisky price-comparison service carries the Gaelic name.

Uisge beatha is Scottish Gaelic for “water of life”, and it is the root of the English word whisky. This site takes its name from the phrase because whisky is the whole of what we do.

The words

Uisge means water and beatha means life. The phrase is a Gaelic translation of the medieval Latin aqua vitae, the term used in medieval Europe for distilled spirits. Irish writes the same phrase uisce beatha. Spoken aloud and written down by English speakers over centuries, uisge beatha wore down through forms such as usquebaugh to the modern word whisky. We keep the Scottish Gaelic spelling with a g, and as house style we write “whisky” for Scotch and “whiskey” for Irish and American whiskey; that is a convention, not an etymology.

Why we use it

Uisge Beatha is a UK whisky price-comparison service, the sister site of the whisky reference site Whiskipedia. We track the same bottle across independent UK retailers and show who has it in stock, at what price, what delivery adds and when we checked. Every price carries its check time, prices are ordered lowest first, and that order is never for sale. How we compare prices describes the method, and the front page lists today’s prices. We chose the name knowing full well how it can sound.

Read more

Our own history article covers the earliest records of distilling in Ireland and Scotland: the water of life sprang from Scotland and Ireland’s monasteries. For the language, our sister site Whiskipedia has the Gaelic language and its history and its uisge beatha section.

Questions

What does uisge beatha mean?
‘Water of life’ in Scottish Gaelic: uisge is water and beatha is life. The phrase translates the Latin aqua vitae, the medieval term for distilled spirits, and English speakers gradually wore uisge beatha down to the word whisky.
What does uisce mean in Irish?
Water. Irish writes the same phrase as uisce beatha, with a c in the first word; Scottish Gaelic writes uisge. Both mean ‘water of life’ and both refer to whisky.
Is uisge beatha the same as aqua vitae?
It is the Gaelic translation of it. Aqua vitae is Latin for ‘water of life’ and was the medieval Latin term for distilled spirits. Gaelic speakers rendered it as uisge beatha in Scotland and uisce beatha in Ireland. Our history article covers the earliest records.
Why is the site called Uisge Beatha?
Because uisge beatha, Scottish Gaelic for ‘water of life’, is the root of the word whisky, and whisky is the whole subject of the site.