John Cor is the name of the friar referred to in the first known written reference to a batch of Scotch Whisky on 1 June 1495.
The Latin entry in the Exchequer Rolls can be translated as:
"To Brother John Cor, by order of the King, to make aqua vitae VIII bolls of malt."[1]
Friar John Cor has been identified as a Dominican Friar in the Stirling house https://brill.com/view/title/8182 but also a less secure suggestion has been made that he might be John Kawe who was a Tironensian monk based at Lindores Abbey in Fife. However in Scots Cor would have had a rolled ‘r’ and is unlikely to be confused as or written as ‘Kawe’. He was a servant at the court of James IV. The King gave him a gift of 14 shillings on Christmas Day in 1488, and at Christmas time in 1494 Cor was given black cloth from Lille in Flanders for his livery clothes as a clerk in royal service. He was probably an apothecary.[2]
An apothecary William Foular from Edinburgh was recorded as making distilled waters and aqua vitae for the Scottish court from December 1506.[3]