Ye Monks – a curious old whisky’ declares the label of one of the more eccentric blends in Diageo’s whisky stable. It was created by the Edinburgh whisky firm of Donald Fisher Ltd, some 400 years after the first written record of whisky being distilled in Scotland. Appropriately enough that was Friar John Cor from Fife who was given permission by the King in the Exchequer Roll of 1494 to make ‘acquavitae’ or the ‘water of life’ from ‘eight bolls of malt’.