Sláinte: Whisky Toasts From Around the World

A wooden bowl passed around at weddings and festivals is the image the National Nordic Museum connects with skål.[9] Sláinte offers something more direct: a wish for health. The Irish dictionary records it as both “health” and a toast, while Scots dictionaries trace a related borrowing from Gaelic. Whisky makes a fitting companion, but is not required: the Dictionaries of the Scots Language explicitly notes that the toast need not accompany whisky.[1][2][3]

Whisky toasts: words worth knowing

A toast can name a wish or preserve the memory of the vessel passed between drinkers. This small, documented selection includes both, from Irish wishes for health and long life to the Scandinavian word for a bowl.[3][8][9][10]

Choose a phrase because you understand the goodwill it expresses, not because it demands a particular performance. A toast need not become an instruction to finish a glass, and nobody needs to drink alcohol to acknowledge the people around them.

Sláinte, slàinte mhath and the Scots record

“Here’s a health to you!” is the wish at the heart of sláinte. In Irish, it is a feminine noun meaning “health”, with “toast” among its recorded uses. Ó Dónaill’s Foclóir Gaeilge Béarla, published in 1977, gives “Sláinte! Seo do shláinte!” alongside that English rendering. For a longer wish, it records “Sláinte agus saol (chugat)!”: health and long life to you.[3]

The Scots dictionary follows the word across a language boundary. It defines slainte, also spelt slange, as “A toast, good wishes before drinking”, deriving it from Gaelic slàinte mhath, “good health”. “Slange” appears in a quotation from Christopher Brookmyre’s Quite Ugly One Morning, published in 1996.[1]

The Dictionaries of the Scots Language describes the word’s appearance in its Scots record as “late”: its earliest example comes from The Times in January 1987, and the entry’s quotations run from 1987 to 2001. These dates belong to the dictionary’s collected Scots material, not the beginning of the Gaelic expression.[1][2] The documented relationship is a borrowing from Gaelic, rather than the loose description “ancient Scots toast”.[1][2]

Nor is it a whisky password. The dictionary’s reminder that the toast can accompany something other than whisky leaves the emphasis on the wish itself. What matters in the phrase is good health, not what happens to be in the glass.[2]

Scottish wishes beyond slàinte mhath

“Here’s tae us; wha’s like us?” was already being called an “old Scotch toast” in July 1899. The Scots Language Centre traces that printed example to the Dundee Evening Telegraph. A variant later appeared in The Times in December 1986.[6]

That word “old” gives the 1899 account its particular charm. It records how the newspaper described the toast, without supplying a founding date or an inventor. The expression of fellowship has a firm place in the printed record, even without an origin story.[6]

“Lang may your lum reek” paints a more domestic picture: smoke rising from the chimney of an inhabited house. The Dictionaries of the Scots Language records it as a wish for prosperity. Reek connects with Old English rēc, “smoke”, and Old Norse reykr.[7]

The image does the work of the toast. A house with a smoking chimney stands for the prosperity being wished upon its occupants. Beside slàinte mhath’s direct wish for good health, it shows how varied the language of goodwill can be, even without mentioning the drink.[2][7]

Skål: a bowl, not a skull

Skål is used in Denmark, Norway and Sweden and pronounced “skoal”, according to the National Nordic Museum. The museum connects the word with a wooden bowl once shared at weddings and festivals.[9]

The English form skoal, also skol, has a Scottish connection. The Online Etymology Dictionary dates it to about 1600 and says it first appears in Scottish English. It derives from Danish skaal, “a toast”, literally “bowl, cup”, and ultimately Old Norse skal.[8]

Story box: the bowl behind skål

Verdict badge

• Claim: Skål originated in Vikings drinking from enemies’ skulls.
• Verdict: Legend.
• What the record shows: The sources trace the word to a bowl or cup.[8][9]
• Evidence against or gap: The linguistic explanation does not support the skull derivation.[8][9]
• Earliest known source: Not established from the sources checked.
• Sources: National Nordic Museum; Online Etymology Dictionary.
• Last checked: November 2026. The exact day is not documented.

Prosit and kanpai

Prosit offers its good wish through a Latin verb: “may it advantage (you)”. The Online Etymology Dictionary describes its established use as a drinking pledge among German students from the 16th century, and records the word in English from 1846.[10] Those dates mark the student tradition and the English record respectively, not the first time someone raised a glass and said it.[10]

In Japanese, kanpai is the most common way to say “cheers”, according to Japan Airlines, which gives the approximate pronunciation “gahn-pie”. It is a useful phrase to learn, though the word alone is not a full account of Japanese toasting etiquette.[11]

From the words spoken over a glass, turn to the word for the ritual itself: why a “toast”?

Why a toast is called a toast

The bread came before the drinking word. Merriam-Webster describes the practice of putting browned or charred spiced bread into a drink, citing Lodowick Lloyd’s The Pilgrimage of Princes from 1573. Shakespeare supplies another vivid example: the instruction to “put a toast in ’t” in The Merry Wives of Windsor.[5]

From bread in the cup, the word moved towards the person being honoured. The Online Etymology Dictionary dates the drinking sense, “a call to drink to someone’s health”, to the 1690s. It says the word first referred to the woman whose health was proposed and drunk, with the custom apparently developing from the spiced toast used to flavour a drink.[4]

The verb meaning to propose a drink is recorded from 1700; toast-master follows from 1749. These are stages in the English word’s recorded development, rather than dates for the beginning of good wishes offered over drinks.[4]

The word’s history leads to bread in a cup, not the clinking of glasses.[4][5]

A cup of kindness beyond New Year

“Auld lang syne” was in the record long before Burns’s surviving song manuscripts. The University of Glasgow traces the phrase to the 16th century, including the anonymous ballad Auld Kyndnes Foryett in the 1568 Bannatyne Manuscript.[12]

The familiar song has a richly particular paper trail. Six manuscript copies of Burns’s “Auld Lang Syne” survive, all with textual differences. A fragment in his hand from 1793 is held at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway. Even words sung together so often have their variations preserved on the page.[12]

The university’s account reads Burns’s “cup o’ kindness” as a widening of an older Jacobite idea: drinking to demonstrate loyalty becomes a wish of goodwill. It also records a Danish setting of family gatherings rather than New Year, with the crossed-arm circle associated with Jutland.[12]

Words travel, and their occasions can change along the way. A toast or song need not carry precisely the same setting wherever it is heard. Knowing that history adds meaning without adding rules: the shared wish remains at the heart of the words.[12]

Sources

1. Dictionaries of the Scots Language. SND: Slainte. Online dictionary entry, edition date not stated. https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/sndns3431
2. Dictionaries of the Scots Language. Scots Word of the Week: Slainte. Online article, publication year not stated. https://dsl.ac.uk/our-publications/scots-word-of-the-week/slainte/
3. Foras na Gaeilge, Teanglann.ie. Sláinte, Foclóir Gaeilge Béarla, Ó Dónaill, 1977. https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/sl%C3%A1inte
4. Online Etymology Dictionary. Toast. Online entry, revision date not stated. https://www.etymonline.com/word/toast
5. Merriam-Webster. Where Does 'Toast' Come From? Online article, publication year not stated. https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-history-of-toast-drinks-cheers
6. Scots Language Centre. Here's tae us. Online article, publication year not stated. https://www.scotslanguage.com/articles/view/id/6768/type
7. Dictionaries of the Scots Language. SND: reek n1 v. Online dictionary entry, edition date not stated. https://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/reek_n1_v
8. Online Etymology Dictionary. Skoal. Online entry, revision date not stated. https://www.etymonline.com/word/skoal
9. National Nordic Museum. Skål! Scandinavian Spirits. Exhibition account, publication year not stated. https://nordicmuseum.org/exhibitions/skal-scandinavian-spirits
10. Online Etymology Dictionary. Prosit. Online entry, revision date not stated. https://www.etymonline.com/word/prosit
11. Japan Airlines. Tokyo After Dark: Discover the Best Bars in Japan's Capital. Trade travel guide, publication year not stated. https://www.jal.co.jp/nz/en/guide-to-japan/destinations/articles/tokyo/bars-cocktail.html
12. University of Glasgow, Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century. Auld Lang Syne. Online exhibition, publication year not stated. https://burnsc21.glasgow.ac.uk/online-exhibitions/auld-lang-syne/

This article is desk research based on the supplied verified fact sheet, drawing on its dictionary entries, museum interpretation and university scholarship, with trade sources identified above.

Last checked: November 2026