July 27 Holidays

National Scotch Day celebrates Scotch whisky — Scotland’s most exported product — specifically the single malt and blended Scotch whiskies distilled in pot stills, aged a minimum of three years in oak casks, and produced under strict geographic protections. Bagpipe Appreciation Day celebrates the chanter-and-drone instrument that has been part of Scottish and Irish military and ceremonial tradition for more than 500 years — and that shows up, improbably, in folk traditions from the Balkans to the Indian subcontinent. Gary Gygax Day marks the July 27, 1938 birthday of Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, the tabletop role-playing game he launched in 1974 — which spawned a $10 billion industry and taught millions of people collaborative storytelling, statistics, and the difference between a d6 and a d20. National Chicken Finger Day celebrates the breaded and fried chicken strip — the American invention that has displaced the chicken nugget as the preferred form of poultry among under-12 diners. Malt, drones, a twenty-sided die, and a fried tenderloin.