The Water of Life (Uisge beatha) - Daniel Marchildon

Uisge beatha, Scottish Gaelic for 'whisky', is literally 'the water of life'. However, it also frequently proves lethal.

Driven by a mysterious voice, Elizabeth Legrand plunges headlong into an insane project: opening a distillery in her small, isolated Canadian community in Georgian Bay. Using ancient reserves of Glen Dubh, a mythical Scotch thought lost to the world, she hopes to create a single-malt whisky better than anything distilled in Scotland. However, the only thing that could prove worse than failing to revive the Glen Dubh is if she succeeds.

The water of life, incarnated in the Fearmòr clan's whisky for over five centuries, is tainted by the dramatic and sometimes fatal struggles of the distillers. It bends the will of those it touches: guiding them or condemning them to their fate. This turbulent family saga spans two continents and several generations of three lineages, climaxing with the tragic arrival of the whisky in Lake Huron.

The present-day descendants of the bloodlines are about to meet, and so will begin yet another tumultuous chapter in the odyssey of 'the water of life', mixing the captivating tale of Scotch whisky with the stories of the challenging Georgian Bay coastal life.