When the Black Death spread across Europe, from 1347 to 1350, physicians didn’t really have anything to make people feel better besides aqua vitae. So they used them. The French translated aqua vita into eau de vie, and the Dutch called it “burnt wine,” or brandewijn. Exported to England, that got corrupted to “brandy-wine,” and eventually just “brandy.” The Scots started making the stuff out of grains; in Gaelic, they called it “water of life,” usquebaugh, eventually corrupted to “whisky.” By the early 1400s, people were getting addicted to ethanol. Liquor had spread across the world.
Adam Rogers in Proof