A great amount of “traditional” culture is a rather recent invention. Think about chillies used in asian cuisine etc.

No, we definitely know they're a Scottish thing. Most of us picture the Irish with suspenders and little bowler hats.

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Do you reckon the sheep that made that tartan are still alive today?

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Braveheart was the nickname for King Robert the Bruce, not William Wallace.

And when Wallace was executed it was worse than the film: Four different horses, one per limb, dragged Wallace for miles to his execution. He was hanged almost to the point of death, before being taken down and horrifically mutilated. While still breathing, his genitals were sliced off, his entrails pulled out, and his innards burned in front of him. It was only then Wallace was decapitated and dismembered. Wallace's head was placed on London Bridge, while the four quarters of his body were placed in Stirling, Aberdeen, Berwick, and Newcastle.

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It might've tasted a bit different than modern day Scotches, but aqua vitae is a distilled drink; and we known malted barley was used. So a distilled drink made from malted barley in Scotland first appeared in 1496.

It might not be aged and as potent as required by modern-day standards, but it is going to be fairly close to what you'd most closely identify as Scotch.

Check out Hugh Trevor-Roper's "The Invention of Tradition" if you want to walk away fully disappointed in the history of Scotland's most famous traditions.

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/stille/Politics%20Fall%202007/readings%20weeks%206-7/Trevor-Roper,%20The%20Highland%20Tradition.pdf

Both basketweave and dyeing are obviously millenia old, and sometimes occur together from about 1000BC onwards. But looms, widespread trade in dyes, and textile industry are a lot younger.

The idea of all people in the clan wearing the same complex pattern in a number of different colours kind of presupposes a local textile industry using looms that could repetitively and inexpensively produce the exact same pattern. No way poorer clan members would have managed to do that at home.

I don't know of anyone who thinks they are Irish. Signed, an American.

I think those might be leather. The Romans often bitched about how the British tribes were barbarians still wearing animal skins lol

I thought he def also got his junk chopped, too?

So what would he actually have worn? Furs and leathers?

Oldest known aquavitae of brasii (malt/beer) 1495, does that mean Scotch? Some people have chosen to belive it does.

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Ah, perhaps it's some technicality or legal thing cementing Scotch whisky vs the various rums. But yeah they were definitely making whisky in Scotland before rum in the Caribbean.

Preposterous. Surely he would use the Washington Crossing Bridge.

Yeah, /u/BasicLuxury is wrong...

Earliest known rum was 1628.
Earliest known scotch was 1496.

The Patriot coulda been so much more fun

I will just be happy when Americans and Canadians realise kilts are Scottish and not Irish.

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You can get dark and light patterns by using different colors of wool. They don't necessarily have to be dyed. They could have used wool from different colored sheep. I think the "true" tartans had reds, greens and blues in them, definitely dyed.

It was some interview with Matt Pietrek. I can't remember the specific one. I might have been more about the specific product we call Scotch, than a general statement on distilling in Scotland.