Drambuie

Drambuie is unusual, given that it is a liqueur made from whisky rather than the fruits or herbs that most liqueurs are made from. It is good by itself or as a mix, as in the classic cocktail - the Rusty Nail, made from Drambuie and whisky. One of the great cocktails!

From Wikipedia:

Drambuie is a golden-coloured, 40% ABV liqueur made from Scotch whisky, honey, herbs and spices.

The name "Drambuie" possibly derives from the Scottish Gaelic phrase an dram buidheach, "the drink that satisfies", a claim made by the original manufacturers of the drink.

After the Battle of Culloden in 1746, Prince Charles Edward Stuart fled to the isle of Skye. There, he was given sanctuary by Captain John MacKinnon of Clan MacKinnon. According to family legend, after staying with the captain, the prince rewarded him with this prized drink recipe.

The legend holds that the recipe, which at that time had no known name, was given by Clan MacKinnon to John Ross in the late 19th century. James Ross, his son and a local business man, ran the Broadford Hotel in Broadford on Skye and it was he who, after the death of John in 1879, began to experiment with the recipe at the Hotel.

In the 1880s, Ross developed and improved the recipe, changing the original brandy base to one of scotch whisky, initially for his friends and then later for hotel patrons. Ross named the concoction 'Drambuie' and sold it further afield, eventually reaching markets in France and the United States.

Drambuie was first commercially produced in Union Street in Edinburgh in 1910. The brand was owned by the MacKinnon family for a hundred years but was bought by William Grant & Sons in 2014.