Gareth
I had understood that "whisky" was an anglophone corruption of the Scots Gaelic "uisege beatha", which means 'the water of life'. I guess that the pure distilate is probably pretty pure, but it isn't sold in that form.
What you buy in the shops is cask strength whisky let down with water (that varies the distinctive character of the dram). Still I reckon that the alcohol would probably kill off most bugs, strip away the mucus from the eye, sting like blazes and be a very inefficient way of getting scotch from the glass into one's throat.
Perhaps we ought to start a string in 'chit chat' that encourages people to think of the most unusual way of using whisky.
Andrew
