title_body: What was the most common hard liquor of the Late Middle Ages?
upvoted_answer: I finally did a little digging. The Late Medieval Period is generally considered from 1300-1500. Whisky, did not become wide spread until the 1700s. The first recorded instance of Whisky production was in 1494: 
  
  
    The Guild of Barber Surgeons.[15] The earliest Irish mention of whisky comes from the seventeenth-century Annals of Clonmacnoise, which attributes the death of a chieftain in 1405 to "taking a surfeit of aqua vitae" at Christmas.[16] In Scotland, the first evidence of whisky production comes from an entry in the Exchequer Rolls for 1494 where malt is sent "To Friar John Cor, by order of the king, to make aquavitae", enough to make about 500 bottles.
  
  
  There is ample evidence that liquor distilled from grapes and other fermented fruit well before the 1300's and Brandy was widespread by 1500. Neither Brandy or Whisky was drunk as much as wine or beer during this period, but just from the time line it looks like Brandy was a) easier to make since you start with wine and no cooking involved until distillation b) had a several hundred year head start on Whisky. 
  
  There were distilled beverages in Asia, but again not as widespread as Brandy in Europe.
  
  Just based on the fact that the first mention of Whisky production isn't until 1494, only 6 years before the end of the Late Medieval Period and Brandy production is mentioned many times in The History and Taxonomy of Distilled Spirits before 1500, I think we can safely assume that Brandy was the most widespread distilled beverage in this time frame.