Etymology of "usquebaugh-baul"

[Elizabeth J. Pyatt]

Hello:

I was recently asked by a reporter if I knew the etymology of the "baul" in the compound "usquebaugh-baul" which is a quadruple strength whiskey (http://whiskyman.com/news/perilous_whisky.html)

The reporter knows that "usquebaugh" is "uisge beatha", but needed more information on "baul". He also passed on that the term appears in Martin Martin's "A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (1703).

His research had discovered ball ~ baull 'limb', the idea that the usquebaugh-baul  "affects all the Members of the Body"   according to Martin.
I also entered "strong" and came up with "balc". I was wondering if this was possible, although there is an extra "c" /k/.

FYI - other sources translate "usquebaugh-baul" as "perilous whiskey", but I couldn't find any words that jumped out at me in the DIL.

Are there any ideas people might have? Any info appreciated.

GRMA/TL

Elizabeth
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
Instructional Designer/Lecturer in Linguistics
Penn State University
ejp10 at psu.edu
http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10/

Got Unicode Blog
http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10/blogs/gotunicode/index.html



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