The whisky industry is probably not the greatest of Scotland's eighteenthcentury industries but is exhibits a growth pattern and a geography that reflect the complex nature of adjustment to new values and opportunities and also the problem of creating an efficient system of government regulation that did not discriminate unreasonably against certain regional interests. There was considerable controversy over moral issues in the late eighteenth century, and the concern shown by the Church of Scotland for whisky distilling in its Statistical Account in the 1790s (in contrast to a generation later) shows how difficult it was to accept it as part of the improvement ethos. The early history of the industry is obscure, a situation that carries the advantage of allowing romantic speculation to stimulate demand for the product but frustrates any scholarly investigation. It may be true that knowledge of distillation accompanied the celts to Ireland and that through the subsequent movement of Scots to Dalriada interest developed in North Britain: ‘the Highland fastnesses provided a sanctuary for the people and an eminently suitable laboratory for the perfection of that malt spirit which commonly served both for victual and drink’. The first documentary reference dates back only to 1494 with an entry in the Exchequer Rolls referring to eight bolls of malt for a certain friar ‘wherewith to make aquavitae’. It might therefore be supposed that monastic communities were most addiduous in practising the art of distillation. Such an idea could accommodate the hypothesis of diffusion from Ireland, through Christian missionaries, and also harmonise with the present day geography through association with areas of monastic settlement.