Whisky Quotations: Verified Sources and Misattributions

“Between Scotch and nothing, I'll take Scotch” really does appear in William Faulkner’s 1956 Paris Review interview.[1] Other familiar whisky quotations have less secure foundations: the two sayings examined here under Mark Twain’s name lack verified Twain sources, while the remark about work being better than whisky belongs to Thomas Edison, not Ralph Waldo Emerson.[2][4][5]

How to use whisky quotations accurately

A useful quotation needs more than a memorable sentence and a famous name. It needs a source that establishes who said or wrote it, the wording used and the context in which it appeared. A dated interview transcript offers something quite different from an anthology that supplies no reference.

The entries below distinguish an authenticated quotation from a documented joke, an attribution dispute and a later legend. “Earliest located” means the earliest appearance identified by the cited research, not proof that nobody used the words before that date. That distinction matters especially with jokes, which can circulate before reaching print.

For the wider literary setting, see whisky in literature and art. This page concentrates on choosing words that can be quoted and credited responsibly.

Faulkner: an answer preserved in an interview

Jean Stein interviewed William Faulkner for The Paris Review, issue 12, Spring 1956. His answer, “Between Scotch and nothing, I'll take Scotch”, is present in the published transcript, rather than merely attached to his name by a later quotation collection.[1]

The surrounding exchange matters. Faulkner included a little whiskey among the tools of his trade and, when asked about bourbon, said he was not particular.[1] The Scotch sentence is authentic, but extracting it should not erase that broader answer or turn it into a claim about an exclusive preference.

Story box: Faulkner’s answer in print

• Verdict: Documented.
• Claim: Faulkner said, “Between Scotch and nothing, I'll take Scotch.”
• What the record shows: The wording appears in his interview with Jean Stein.
• Earliest known source: The Paris Review, issue 12, Spring 1956.[1]
• Last checked: November 2026.

Edison, not Emerson: work and worry

“As a cure for worrying, work is better than whisky” is well supported as Thomas Edison’s remark.[4] Quote Investigator traces the earliest located instance to the Detroit Free Press of 16 February 1929, reporting Allan L. Benson’s interview for Cosmopolitan. The fuller statement appeared in the March 1929 Hearst’s International Combined with Cosmopolitan.[4]

The Emerson credit has a much weaker foundation. Quote Investigator identifies a 1988 Longview News-Journal column that attributed the sentence to Emerson, but finds support for Edison instead.[4] The practical correction is straightforward: credit Edison and cite the interview trail, rather than reproducing the later attribution.

Verdict: Documented. The 1929 reports support Edison’s authorship; the Emerson attribution appears in a later column without equivalent support.[4]

This is an attribution finding, not advice to use either work or alcohol to manage distress.

Twain: two familiar lines without verified sources

Whiskey and water

“Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over” has no substantive evidence linking it to Twain, according to Quote Investigator.[2] The earliest located instance appeared in the Aberdeen American News on 12 April 1983, spoken by Warren (Bob) Neufeld of the South Dakota Department of Water and Natural Resources. That report did not mention Twain.[2]

Twain attributions followed in Western Wildlands in summer 1983 and the Wall Street Journal that September. Twain had died in 1910.[2] The sequence establishes a substantial gap between his lifetime and the located evidence, not an authenticated Twain quotation.

Verdict: Legend. Neufeld used a version in April 1983, followed by Twain attributions later that year; no substantive Twain evidence was found.[2]

Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt told Congress on 6 March 1984 a story of Twain making the saying while travelling West. That account is also a legend: no supporting citation for Twain’s involvement has been located.[2]

“Barely enough”

“Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough” should not be presented as verified Twain.[5] The trade source Quotle reports that no supporting passage has been produced from his books, sketches, speeches, letters or notebooks. Its earliest datable print appearance located is page 37 of Mark Twain on Common Sense, published by Skyhorse in 2014, without a citation.[5]

Verdict: Legend. The located record establishes an uncited anthology appearance, not Twain’s authorship; an earlier supporting source remains unproduced.[5]

The line’s praise of excess is part of the quotation under examination, not a recommendation.

W. C. Fields: a joke with several wordings

The snakebite joke presents a different problem: Fields used it, but that does not establish that he invented it or spoke every version now credited to him. Quote Investigator records an appearance in the Manchester Evening News of 12 July 1910, before Fields’s published version in This Week Magazine in 1939.[3]

Fields also recorded “The Temperance Lecture” in 1946, with a punchline about a snake “which I also keep handy”. The version involving a “flagon of whiskey” appears in a 2005 book by Chad Minter.[3] A quotation assembled from that later wording should not be labelled a verbatim transcription of Fields’s recording.

Verdict: Disputed. The record establishes Fields’s use in 1939 and 1946, but also an earlier printed joke and differing versions.[3]

For reuse, identify the particular printed or recorded version. “A joke used by Fields” is more defensible than treating every circulating formulation as his exact words.

Churchill: separate the words from the image

Churchill’s own account offers a sourceable sentence: “By the end of these five days I had completely overcome my repugnance to the taste of whisky.” Richard Langworth cites My Early Life, published by Thornton Butterworth in 1930, pages 140 to 141.[7]

The setting needs qualification. Langworth places the episode in 1898 with the Malakand Field Force on India’s North-West Frontier; the International Churchill Society gives the broader account of India and South Africa.[6][7]

Verdict: Disputed. Langworth cites the memoir for his account of the Frontier episode, while the Society gives an account covering India and South Africa.[6][7]

The familiar image of an undiluted morning Scotch also needs correction. His daughter called his small amount of Johnnie Walker topped with water the “Papa Cocktail”; Jock Colville described it as “more akin to mouthwash than a highball”.[6] Those recollections describe dilution, not a serving recommendation.

Burns: name the poem and the text

“Freedom and Whisky gang thegither” comes from Burns’s The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer, published in 1786.[8] Naming the poem is a useful first defence against a quotation becoming detached from its source.

The following line requires care. The BBC text gives “Take aff your whitter”; Charles Snodgrass’s article for The Bottle Imp quotes the Kilmarnock edition as “Tak aff your dram!”[8][11]

Verdict: Disputed. The sources support the opening line but present different endings; neither should silently replace the other.[8][11]

For a quotation of the complete couplet, specify which text you follow. The separate guide to Robert Burns and whisky provides the wider subject.

Two more quotations with identifiable settings

Samuel Johnson wrote: “The word whisky signifies water, and is applied by way of eminence to strong water, or distilled liquor.” The passage appears in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.[10] Quote it as Johnson’s explanation within that work, rather than detaching the opening words as a standalone modern definition.

A more unexpected example comes from judicial writing. Justice Hugo Black referred to Scotch needing “a tax preference to survive in competition with Kentucky bourbon” in his dissent in Department of Revenue v. James B. Beam Distilling Co., 377 U.S. 341 (1964). The Sixth Circuit opened its 2012 Maker’s Mark opinion by quoting him.[9]

Verdict: Documented. The Sixth Circuit’s opinion quotes and attributes the remark to Black’s 1964 dissent.[9]

Where to go next

• Whisky in Literature and Art: the broader setting for whisky in creative work.
• Robert Burns and Whisky: Scotch Drink, John Barleycorn and the Exciseman: the poet beyond a single couplet.
• Whisky in Songs and Folk Music: another route through whisky’s cultural record.

Sources

1. The Paris Review. William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12. Issue 12, Spring 1956. https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4954/the-art-of-fiction-no-12-william-faulkner.
2. Quote Investigator. Quote Origin: Whiskey Is for Drinking; Water Is for Fighting Over. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/06/03/whiskey-water/.
3. Quote Investigator. Quote Origin: I Washed It Down With Some Snakebite Remedy Which I Always Keep Handy. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/06/27/snakebite/.
4. Quote Investigator. Quote Origin: As a Cure for Worrying, Work Is Better Than Whisky. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/11/26/work-whisky/.
5. Quotle, trade source. Who really said ‘Too much whiskey is barely enough’? https://quotle.info/who-said/too-much-whiskey-is-barely-enough/.
6. International Churchill Society. Myths: Alcohol Abuser. https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/myths/alcohol-abuser/.
7. Richard M. Langworth. Updates: Was Churchill an Alcoholic? Spirits, Pipes, Cigarettes. https://richardlangworth.com/alcoholic-pipes-cigarettes.
8. BBC. Robert Burns: The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer. https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertburns/works/the_authors_earnest_cry_and_prayer/.
9. US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, reproduced by Justia. Maker’s Mark Distillery, Inc. v. Diageo North America, Inc., No. 10-5508. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca6/10-5508/10-5508-2012-05-09.html.
10. Project Gutenberg. A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, by Samuel Johnson. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2064/2064-h/2064-h.htm.
11. Association for Scottish Literature, The Bottle Imp, Charles Snodgrass. Whisky: The Spirit of Scottish National Identity. https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2016/04/whisky-the-spirit-of-scottish-national-identity/?print=print.

This desk-researched article uses the supplied verified fact sheet, distinguishing original transcripts and texts from later attribution research and commentary.

Last checked: November 2026