Whisky Customs: First Footing, the Wedding Quaich and the Irish Wake

A hen could count as a lucky first visitor at Scottish New Year. A silver quaich could imitate the wooden staves of an older cup. At an Irish wake, cards might be played on the bed where the body lay.[1][6][8] Whisky customs bring together hospitality, craftsmanship, marriage and mourning, with local details often more striking than the familiar stories. Their recorded histories reveal how a drink found its place at the threshold, between newlyweds and among those keeping company with the bereaved.[1][5][8]

First-footing: whisky at the threshold

Just after midnight on 1 January, the first visitor through the door was thought to bring a household good or bad fortune. That is the belief behind first-footing. In Nancy C. McEntire’s account of northern Scottish practice, whisky was “the drink of choice”: visitors received a nip, accompanied by toasts to health.[1] These were expressions of goodwill, not evidence of a health benefit.

What visitors carried mattered. McEntire records coal for warmth, salt for luck, shortbread, oatcakes, black bun, a coin and whisky. Arriving empty handed could be understood as wishing a curse upon the household.[1] A bottle was only part of the exchange: fuel, food, hospitality and hopes for the coming year all crossed the threshold.

The word Hogmanay carries that generosity within it. The Scottish National Dictionary defines it as 31 December and records Old Scots hagmonay, meaning a New Year gift, from 1604. Its quotation for the New Year’s Eve sense dates from 1696. Another meaning is hospitality offered to a New Year guest, especially a drink: a 1905 account describes “bun, shortbread, and wine or whisky”.[3]

Who arrived could matter as much as the gifts. A dark haired man was widely considered fortunate, while women and red haired or fair haired men could be judged unlucky.[1] These were recorded prejudices within the custom, not judgements to carry into a present-day welcome.

Nor did the belief stop at the doorstep. The dictionary records “lucky fit” and “ill fit” for someone bringing good or bad fortune. An 1842 Caithness quotation describes the first-foot as the first person or animal encountered when setting out.[2] First-footing was broader, and more varied, than a modern checklist of visitors and gifts might suggest.

Story box: the lucky hen

Verdict: Documented. Crombie recorded a hen among lucky first-footers. His 1893 account, discussed by McEntire, is the earliest source identified here; the claim concerns the recorded belief, not a hen’s power to bring good fortune. The supplied record contains no contrary evidence.[1]

Scotland’s New Year customs also followed different calendars. In parts of Lewis, Oidhche Challainn was kept on 12 January, Old New Year under the Julian calendar.[4] Dr Dòmhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart describes boys wearing a calfskin or sheepskin, circling the fire sunwise three times and fumigating the house with a singed sheep’s dewlap.

Getting through the door required more than turning up. Each boy had to recite his own rhyme, hence “No rhyme, no admission”.[4] Beside first-footing, this vivid account gives recorded local traditions their due: the broader names of customs hold many distinct local practices.

Verdict: Documented. Stiùbhart’s account records the rhyme required for admission, without identifying the custom’s origin.[4] The earliest source and its date are not established in the supplied record. Checked November 2026; the day was not recorded.

The wedding quaich: an old cup and a marriage custom

The quaich began in wood, not silver. Its name comes from Gaelic cuach, meaning cup, and National Museums Scotland explains that early quaichs were often assembled from staves held together with withies, strips of willow.[6] The cup’s material history is more securely documented than many stories about its origins.

Silversmiths added silver mounts in the middle of the 17th century. By the 1660s they were making wholly silver quaichs, reproducing the staves and bindings of the wooden cups in their metalwork.[6] Even in silver, the form remembered its wooden predecessors.

Verdict: Documented. National Museums Scotland’s account records the development from wooden to silver quaichs and the reproduction of wooden construction in silver.[6] The earliest source and its date are not established in the supplied record. Checked November 2026; the day was not recorded.

Two museum objects make the progression tangible. One is a silver quaich by Matthew Colquhoun of Ayr, dated about 1685. The other is a staved wooden quaich with silver mounts, possibly by Alexander Fraser of Inverness, dated about 1680.[6] They anchor the history of the cup in dated craftsmanship, rather than establish when a wedding ceremony began.

The National Trust for Scotland says quaichs were used at Highland clan gatherings to offer guests a welcoming drink. In the wedding practice it describes, the couple usually share the quaich just after signing the register. It is what the Trust calls their “first drink together as a married couple”.[5]

Whisky is traditional in that account, but brandy, water or tea may be used.[5] Sharing the cup need not mean insisting on one drink. Couples considering the custom can include it without making alcohol a condition of participation.

The glass bottom story

A glass bottom, according to a story recounted by the National Trust for Scotland, allowed a chief to keep his guest in view while drinking.[5] It is a memorable explanation, classified as legend rather than established design history.

Calling the wedding quaich an ancient, documented clan rite requires the same distinction. The sources establish historical cups in the museum record and a wedding practice described by the Trust, which acknowledges legendary origins.[5][6] The cup’s long material history and its place in a marriage ceremony are both worth knowing, without assuming an unbroken ceremonial history between them.

The Irish wake: company, games and remembrance

Cards played on the bed where the body lay: Seán Ó Súilleabháin’s Irish Wake Amusements, published in 1967, records that striking intimacy between death and play. Its games included Tinkering Them Out, The Spy, Beat Out the Bull and Shooting the Buck.[8] These are details of documented wakes, not a pattern shared by every Irish household.

The games belonged to a wider gathering, keeping company with the dead and the bereaved through the night. Its provisions extended well beyond whiskey. Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire’s study describes historical accounts containing whiskey, porter and tea, alongside clay pipes, tobacco and snuff.[9] Local testimony adds the bedside candles and arrangements for the overnight gathering.[12]

One Schools’ Collection account from Cruimghlinn, County Mayo, describes five candles beside the bed and a table holding tobacco and pipes. Mourners received a pipe, tobacco, matches and snuff. The wake ended at about three or four in the morning.[12] Together, those details give a concrete picture of the gathering, rather than instructions for holding one.

Church opposition forms another strand of the history. A secondary account reports that the Synod of Tuam objected to lavish wake meals, obscene songs and suggestive games in 1614, renewing its criticism in 1660.[10] Local testimony records a more specific demand concerning where the dead were kept.

In Caiseal, County Mayo, a Schools’ Collection contributor recalled Father Gildea refusing to bless graves unless the dead were taken to church instead of being waked at home.[11]

Verdict: Documented. The contributor’s recollection of Father Gildea’s ultimatum appears in Wakes, Caiseal.[11] The individual record’s year, and the earliest source and its date, are not established in the supplied record. Checked November 2026; the day was not recorded.

Whiskey could travel with the funeral beyond the house. Mac Con Iomaire records the custom of taking whiskey or poitín to the graveyard and sharing it while the grave was prepared.[9] It was one recorded practice, not a requirement for mourning or participation.

Verdict: Documented. Mac Con Iomaire’s 2026 study, Food, Drink, and Consolatory Practices at Irish Wakes and Funerals, records the shared bottle as a custom.[9] The earliest source and its date are not established in the supplied record. Checked November 2026; the day was not recorded.

In the ballad “Finnegan’s Wake”, whiskey takes a more spectacular role: a man returns to life after it is splashed on him at his wake.[9] Comic revival belongs to the song. The funeral records tell a different story, of provisions, company, games and remembrance. Read alongside one another, they show the drink’s place in both storytelling and the practical customs surrounding death.

Where to go next

• Whisky in Folklore: Recorded Tales and Local Traditions: explore the distinctions between local testimony and recorded tales.
• Saint Patrick and the Origins of Irish Whiskey: Legend and Record: follow another Irish story through tradition and historical evidence.
• Ghosts of the Distilleries: Local Legends and Their Sources: read supernatural tales with their sources in view.

Sources

1. Nancy C. McEntire, Ritual Year, “First-Footing in the North of Scotland, Past and Present”, publication year not supplied in the verified sheet. https://www.folklore.ee/ritual_year/RY/article/download/20/35/78
2. Dictionaries of the Scots Language, Scottish National Dictionary, “Fit n1 v1”, online edition, publication year not supplied. https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/fit_n1_v1
3. Dictionaries of the Scots Language, Scottish National Dictionary, “Hogmanay”, online edition, publication year not supplied. https://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/hogmanay
4. Tobar an Dualchais / Kist o Riches, Dr Dòmhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart, “Oidhche Challainn: No Admission Without A Rhyme”, publication year not supplied. https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/blog/oidhche-challainn-no-admission-without-a-rhyme?l=en
5. National Trust for Scotland, “Scottish wedding traditions: drinking from the quaich”, publication year not supplied. https://www.nts.org.uk/stories/scottish-wedding-traditions-drinking-from-the-quaich
6. National Museums Scotland, “Uniquely Scottish: 5 highlights of the silver collections”, publication year not supplied. https://www.nms.ac.uk/discover-catalogue/uniquely-scottish-silver-top-5-highlights-from-the-silver-collections
7. Seán Ó Súilleabháin, “Irish Wake Amusements”, extract in Cabinet, issue 45, 2012, from the book published in 1967. https://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/45/osuilleabhain.php
8. Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire, “Food, Drink, and Consolatory Practices at Irish Wakes and Funerals 1975 to 2025”, Folklore, volume 137, issue 3, 2026, pp. 415 to 438. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0015587X.2026.2636404
9. Catholic World Report, “An uneasy history: Irish Catholicism and the Irish wake”, 2022, secondary account. https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/03/16/an-uneasy-history-irish-catholicism-and-the-irish-wake/
10. dúchas.ie, The Schools’ Collection, “Wakes, Caiseal”, individual record date not established in the verified sheet. https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4427952/4360556/4464150
11. dúchas.ie, The Schools’ Collection, “A Wake, Cruimghlinn”, individual record date not established in the verified sheet. https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4427824/4347387/4451537

This article is desk research based on the site’s verified fact sheet, distinguishing recorded customs, material evidence, secondary historical accounts and legend.

Last checked: November 2026