When people talk about the benefits of owning a whisky cask, almost nobody will claim that the biggest advantages are medicinal in nature.

Whilst a particularly potent bottle can put fire in your stomach, nobody in the medical profession is likely to tell you to take two drams and call them in the morning.

However, barely a century ago, medical prescriptions for whisky did not only exist, they were also astonishingly common for around 13 years, for reasons that are somewhat dubiously related to actual medical practice.

Aqua Vitae

Early production of whisky under the name aqua vitae was initially intended to be for medicinal purposes, and alcoholic spirits are still used to this very day as an antiseptic or very occasionally as an antidote to ethylene glycol poisoning such as that caused by the Austrian Antifreeze Wine scandal.

However, by the 1850s, medical knowledge had increased to the point that alcohol was rarely prescribed for medical conditions the way it had been with rank fervour since at least the 13th century.

By 1917, it had been removed from official prescriptions, and the American Medical Association voted to discourage its use in medicine and voiced its opposition as a beverage.

This decision, one of many in support of the growing Temperance Movement in the United States, led to Prohibition, a 13-year period where alcohol was illegal to sell, transport and manufacture, although it was legal to own and drink yourself.

Millions of people got around this law simply by ignoring it, drinking bootlegged spirits either from abroad or produced as low-quality moonshine domestically from secretive speakeasies.

However, by 1922, there was another way to get access to alcohol and that was via a medical prescription signed by a doctor.

The same AMA that had voted in favour of prohibition, changed its mind just five years later, believing that “Spiritus Frumenti” (which technically meant any alcohol but almost always meant either whisky or brandy) could help to treat snakebites, cancer, indigestion, depression, diabetes and 22 other conditions.

Somewhat infamously, future Prime Minister Winston Churchill was prescribed a “naturally indefinite” amount of whisky after being hit by a car in 1932. It was noted that he would need 2.5 litres and would require it, especially at meal times.

Everyone else could also claim a prescription, paying $3 for the doctor to write it and another $3 for it to be dispensed by a pharmacy, which means that for an overall cost of £87 adjusted for inflation, people could legally buy and drink a pint of whisky.

Doctors would ostensibly examine patients, although according to Daniel Okrent in an article for Smithsonian Magazine, these diagnoses were “mostly bogus”.

Repeat prescriptions were banned under the Volstead Act which governed prohibition, but this did not stop doctors from cancelling a prescription and writing up another one after the ten-day grace period had expired.

This practice led to a boom for pharmacies, and the rapid growth of the chain Walgreens is claimed to be the result of dubious whisky prescriptions, although this is an accusation the company strongly denies.

Prohibition mercifully ended in 1933 and people could enjoy delicious whisky in peace without risking arrest or committing medical fraud in the process.