Fraoch

Who were the ancient Picts? Did they come from Atlantis or from UFOs? Were they tiny like Hobbits, or massive barbarian He-Men? Were they druids or feminists? Nobody knows, but one thing we do know is that they drank heather ale, because people have been drinking heather ale in Scotland since 2000 BC, and they drank it right up until the English made them stop. Now you can drink it again if you can find a bottle of Fraoch, which is actually the Gaelic word for “heather,” which means it's not what the Picts called it because they spoke Pictish, not Gaelic.

Why would the English make the Scots stop drinking heather ale? Was it just to be mean, or were they trying to stamp out any lingering remnants of Pictish matriarchal-Druidic-Atlantean resistance to their oppressive rule? Nobody knows, but one thing we do know is that the English wanted Scots brewers to have to buy ingredients from England, instead of just using heather, which was growing all over the place for free.

 

The moral of the story is this: the Picts were either a group of tribes speaking a variant of P-Celtic and brewing ale from heather which they did not call “Fraoch,” or they were a mysterious Atlantean Druidic matriarchy. The English either banned heather ale in order to make a few extra bucks, or they did it as part of a fiendish anti-Pictish plot. Have a “Fraoch” and decide for yourself. It's pretty good.