Dublin's Liquor Museum

There is an interesting video on the RTÉ Archive, featuring a visit to the CIÉ Liquor Museum in 1962, in the early days of RTÉ Television. The museum was then in the basement of Heuston Station and featured both rare and novelty bottles of alcohol as well as other drinking ephemera

The operator seems very odd. CIÉ, then as now, were the national public transport operator but also had a hotels division - which was reformed as the still commonly remembered Great Southern Hotels in 1963, with this being responsible for the museum.

The museum had been moved from Harcourt Street station following its closure in December 1958- it, and the station bar and restaurant, actually outlived railway services there by many months.

Irish Times, October 7 1959

The official re-opening on April 28th, 1961 referenced that it had re-opened earlier in 1961, so it is likely it wasn't closed for very long during the move. This article claims "8,000 tourists" had visited it in Harcourt Street; with the October 1959 article having claimed "16,000 visitors, most of them tourists" by that stage - not the clearest set of figures to try figure out how popular it was!

But for whatever reason, this RTE Archives clip and some other back-references to it are basically the only information online about this Museum. CIÉ continued to own Great Southern until 1990, but it definitely doesn't appear to have lasted that long - so what happened to it?

Well, it seems it moved again. CIÉ also owned canal systems - the Royal since its foundation and the Grand since its nationalisation in 1950 (the nationalisation of both, that is - CIÉ were a private company originally!), until 1986, which may have had some influence on what happened to it next.

The small village of Robertstown in County Kildare is dominated by the Grand Canal, which splits nearby; and its related buildings and facilities, including the large Grand Canal Hotel, which closed as a hotel in 1849 and was then used as an RIC Barracks. 

But by the 1960s it was being used as the centrepiece of an annual festival, the "Grand Canal Festa", and it appears housed the Liquor Museum from this time on. Newspaper previews of the Festa each year would mention the Liquor Museum as being provided courtesy of CIÉ.

The Festa was last run in 1975. The Liquor Museum is last referred to in 1978, in a report on a restoration project to the Hotel - which had fallen in to quite some dereliction - with the Museum being mentioned as an exhibition there - but having been closed along with the rest of the building.

This is the last time its mentioned in a currently INA/Irish Times Archive accessible newspaper at least. The Hotel in Robertstown operated as some form of museum and gallery in to the early/mid 00s, and I suspect that the Kildare County Archives may have some more information on what was in it, and what happened to its contents when it closed - if the booze was still there at all! By the time of the 2009 Streetview pass, it was significantly boarded up with the one remaining sign outside showing its use as museum fading away

Revisited pubs: June 2021

Its been a long, long time since I got to write one of these posts, and I got around a bit last month - using some time off I was forced to take to revisit a few smaller pubs, as well as just getting lunch with a pint some other times. Long may this continue.

1013579 Luckys, Meath Street

1015426 Rubys, Point Square

N0088 Bleecker Street, Dorset Street

N1833 Harbourmaster, Mayor Street

S1497 Harkins, Echlin Street

S3103 Beer Market, High Street

July 2021 Licence Update

 Only one update this month, other than some registered owner changes

New:

1017199 Gourmet Burger Kitchen, South William Street

Whats On Draught? 1972 style

Boak and Bailey recently did a post on the topic of what you would have been able to buy in an average English pub in 1965 - picked as a representative year by virtue of having a data source for it.

I've sometimes wondered about the similar range available in Dublin in times past - remembering, in my own drinking years, of products appearing with significant promotional hype only to vanish either nearly or entirely (Labatt, Amstel, Bulmers Pear, Roundstone and so on); and knowing of all the lineup changes that have occurred due to brewery mergers, partnership deals and so on - but I'd never seen as concise a list before.

But I've now found one. A trawl of the Oireachtas Library turned up a National Prices Commission report from November 1972 entitled "The Price Of Drink", and it mainly seems to exist to rubbish an LVA request for price increases - pub prices in Dublin often being regulated in times past.

The appendices give wholesale prices, some Dublin specific, as of November 1972 for the standard lineup of what was being offered by the main wholesalers. A bar would frequently have had only a few draught taps at the time (far from the 12-16 that are common these days), but could easily have offered all the bottled products.

Draught beers:

Guinness (available in a baffling array of delivery sizes up to 1900 litres)
Guinness Porter (discontinued in 1973)
Double Diamond (likely brewed at Macardles)
Macardles
Phoenix
Smithwicks Draught (not sure what this is, but it was cheaper than Smithwicks No. 1)
Smithwicks No. 1  (allegedly the Smithwicks we still have today, but recipes will have changed)
Time (rebranded Smithwicks Export)
Harp
Carling Black Label
Crawfords Golden Ale (from Beamish, no idea as to what it was other than what the name suggests)
Bass
Carlsberg
Beamish Cream Stout
Murphys

Bottled beers:

Phoenix
Time
Smithwicks No. 1
Macardles No. 1
Double Diamond
Harp
Skol (fake Scandinavian lager from Scotland)
Harp Extra
Mackesons
Carling Black Label
Bass
Carlsberg Export
Carlsberg Special
Tuborg
Murphys

Irish made/owned spirits:

Midleton Reserve
Jameson Crested Ten
Powers Gold Label
Paddy
Jameson Red Seal
Hewitts
Cork Dry Gin
Commodore Gin (no idea)
Powers Gin (yes, that Powers - produced until the 80s or so)
Huzzar Vodka
Nordoff Vodka  (this still exists as IDLs paintstripper grade supermarket/convenience store brand)
Saratov Vodka (never heard of this)
Kiskadee Rum

There's no prices for imported products other than beer; and Ireland was more than a bit sherry mad at the time, so your average pub would probably have had a few sherries, a few mass market Scotches and some sub-supermarket grade wines on offer also.

1016704 Johns Bar

So, does an outdoor only pub visit really count as a visit? Well, its my list and I'll decide on a case-by-case basis. And I'm counting this.

Press Up / Paddy McKillen Jr's newest (I think) venture to open so far is Johns on Thomas Street, in a renovated/redeveloped building with some seriously old building fabric and legitimate claims to pub history, but named after the early Victorian haberdashers that occupied the site - I believe some haberdashery will be available for sale in time, rather like how the hardware store themed Press Up pubs actually sell hardware.

The pub actually initially opened during the brief "substantial meal" indoor period of operations in 2020, I believe the only pub in the entire city to open as new during that strange period. Under current restrictions, they have some seats on Thomas Street, and a small beer garden to the rear - which, usefully on a sunny day as it was when I visited, is shielded from sunlight from probably mid morning onwards. This could be a bit grim come Autumn, but I'd hope we're back inside by then!

The pub is standard Press Up fare - Heineken Ireland dominated taps, sinks in the jacks that appear to have been stolen from my grandmothers house, and a Wow Burger between the pub element and the beer garden/toilets. If you've been in one you've been in all of them really - although for a fairly generic pub chain, Press Up do care about history and many of their pubs are in what were long derelict buildings, so maybe I do give them too hard of a time.

S0003 Toners

My first visit of the Summer 2021 outdoor-only pub period, my first new pub since August 2020, and to a pub which has made huge efforts to both get a sustainable amount of business during it, and preserve something like what you'd actually expect from that pub.

One of Baggot Streets famed, historic premises, Toners already had a sizeable and popular beer garden - Toners Yard - which was already bigger than the main bar inside. An additional area of seating has been added to the rear of this for Summer 2021. 

The outdoor area is almost entirely divided in to booths - or personal snugs to think of it another way - seating six people, with a few areas for 2 and 4 scattered around. Table service is supplied from a service bar in a small building, with a bank vault door - left open rather than having to be grappled with a tray of pints!

The pub doesn't have its own kitchens, and was able to open in the "substantial meal" eras of last year with pizzas from the restaurant across the road. These are still available despite this requirement having been dropped.

This is probably as close to a normal pub experience as you're going to find for now - yes, some of the seats can get draughty or a bit damp if the weather is particularly poor, but you get conventional pub seating, proper service and access to the well appointed toilets of the main bar.

As an aside - is this finally the last of the "surely you must have drunk there?" pubs? Obviously, someone is going to have that opinion about nearly any and every pub, but there were a set where people would express that even when I'd only visited ~150 pubs.

June 2021 licence update

Hopefully, this is the last update without any new pub related postings - although I have yet to decide if an outdoor-only visit counts. I have sat outdoors for the entirety of the visit to a few pubs anyway - S0368 The Blue Light comes to mind along with a few pubs in Howth on a glorious day - but I had the option of sitting inside if I wanted to.

As has been the case for over a year, not a lot of changes:

Additions

1017192 Zanzibar Locke Hotel - this replaced the long closed N2004 Burn Beach Club, formerly Zanzibar nightclub, on its site but it may not be the same licence.