Excellent!

Bravo! A fine parable indeed.

'Bog-Trotter" That's a new one.

Very fun read. Thanks for sharing.

"Bog-trotter" is steeped in antiquity, actually. Very, very old. I think Julius Caesar, landing on a British beach and seeing the British warriors lined up to oppose him, did a double-take and pointed to the spear carrier who was half-sozzled, and said to his adjutant, "who's that bog-trotter?"

Or, in Latin, "ambulator boggus"

What's the old saying? God invented whiskey to keep the Irish from taking over the world?

A worthy tale, I shall have to steal remember it!

Part of it was already stolen...

The joke about a dead Irishman tring to sneak into heaven before the devil knows he's dead is pretty old. I added the part about the wager, and how the "honest" Irishman couldn't sell his soul a second time.

"would you like a little whisky, perhaps?"

I'll pass, me and whisky don't get along too well (the spellchecker is highlighting "whisky" for some reason, though it's as valid a spelling as "whiskey" which is a slightly different beverage). My one experience with this drink came at Robert Asprin's wake at ApolloCon a while back, involving about a little-finger's-width amount in a cup full of rapidly-melting ice - which I was unable to finish, and which left me in a somewhat smashed state. Tullamore Dew, it was, from an unopened bottle found in Asprin's home after his departure to Another Place.

I haven't found a ouisquebaugh that I liked, and I've tried a number of them. They all taste different, I'll give them that. But to my palate they have all the less pleasing qualities of rum or brandy with none of the good stuff.

Oddly enough, I do like Drambouie, which is a liquer made from whiskey.

Whiskey is the more common spelling in the US, I gather. Whisky more common in Canada and virtually mandatory in the British Isles. In as much as American whiskeys are distinctive in themselves, I suppose you could say that whiskey is not quite the same flavour as whisky.