Oldest Bar

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Tater
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Oldest Bar

Post by Tater »

Bar
> Oldest: Sean’s Bar
> Approximate Date: 900 A.D.
> Location: Athlone, Ireland

Sean’s Bar in Athlone, Ireland has been serving drinks for over a millennium. The watering hole, about two hours away from Dublin, has been confirmed as the oldest bar in Europe and quite likely the rest of the world by the Guinness Book of World Records. And if anyone knows about Irish bars, it is Guinness. The pub is still active and has live music frequently. The oldest bar in the United States is Rhode Island’s White Horse Tavern, opened in 1673.
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Bushman
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Re: Oldest Bar

Post by Bushman »

Interesting facts Tater, last year while in Ireland I toured several distilleries. One of them was called Kilbeggan and they claimed to be running the oldest pot still that is still in production at 190 years old. Guess it would be 191 now. It was smooth so I brought home 2 bottles of whiskey.
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Re: Oldest Bar

Post by Soft batch »

It seems every distillery in Ireland is the oldest at something. Oldest continuous, oldest potstill, oldest licensed, oldest craft distillery, oldest blended, oldest name... 1000+ years dwarfs anything in the US short of an Indian cave!

I been to the Green Dragon Tavern in Boston (The name c 1654 - but not the original building) - has a colorful history in American history.
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Re: Oldest Bar

Post by rubber duck »

This is a pretty cool discussion. I always wonder about the history of the older bars I sometimes go to. Vista del mar isn't that old but what a history.
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Re: Oldest Bar

Post by Bushman »

Here is some history info I started posting in 2014 and others added to it that goes along with this topic that some might find interesting if they haven’t seen the thread before.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=50963&hilit=Whisky+a+peculiar...
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nerdybrewer
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Re: Oldest Bar

Post by nerdybrewer »

Bushman wrote:Here is some history info I started posting in 2014 and others added to it that goes along with this topic that some might find interesting if they haven’t seen the thread before.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=50963&hilit=Whisky+a+peculiar...
Great thread Bushman!
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Re: Oldest Bar

Post by kiwi Bruce »

And think of this...if you have any Irish in you at all, then you have someone in your family tree that will have drunk at Sean's, at sometime between now and the last 1120 years...that's a hell of a long time.
or perhaps many many someones...
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Re: Oldest Bar

Post by Pesty »

I grew up in RI.. the white horse was a right of passage for many as was knights liquors on broadway.
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Re: Oldest Bar

Post by nerdybrewer »

kiwi Bruce wrote:And think of this...if you have any Irish in you at all, then you have someone in your family tree that will have drunk at Sean's, at sometime between now and the last 1120 years...that's a hell of a long time.
or perhaps many many someones...
Yes, I would love to go there and dig up some more genealogical evidence for a while...

My ancestors came and settled in New Amsterdam in the mid 17th century.
Very Dutch on the female side and quite a bit scalywag on the male side.
He helped build the first Dutch church there and had a license to sell spirits (yes there was licensing even way back then).
Somewhere along the line a pretty strong Irish lineage was introduced, likely on the female side of things.
My own beard used to be bright red, my oldest daughter is a beautiful redhead and her daughter (now almost 2 years) also blazing redhead.
The Irish runs strong here!
Would be fun to take the two of them to Seans in about 18 years!!
Cranky's spoonfeeding:
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=52975

Time and Oak will sort it out.
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Re: Oldest Bar

Post by NZChris »

We're having a beer at New Zealand's oldest pub, Moutere Inn, built in 1850. There are older licenses, but their original buildings have been burned down.
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Re: Oldest Bar

Post by Twisted Brick »

Me Mum's mother was scottish, her father was Irish (aye, that's prolly where my drinkin' genes come from). A quick check of a map of Ireland shows the great-grandparents hometown was 22km (45min) from Sean's Bar.

I'd be willing to bet my great-grandfather tipped a few there in his time.
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Re: Oldest Bar

Post by kiwi Bruce »

NZChris wrote:We're having a beer at New Zealand's oldest pub, Moutere Inn, built in 1850.
That's a very pretty area around the top of the "Big Island" Down a few for me!
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Re: Oldest Bar

Post by thecroweater »

I have the original bar and some other fittings of the Moorundie Hotel. This hotel started out as a sly grog shop, that is, an unlicensed premise often selling unlicensed booze. It was originally called old whipstick when it opened around 1837 but civilization came and so before a decade pasted it was licenced as the Moorundie Hotel. It traded as such until around 1856 when due to floods and isolation its license was transferred to Blachetown , it was pulled down and its fitting used to rebuild the pub there. It's old native pine bar was cut up and used as a floor in the slaughter room and eventually had another floor layer over it made of bulldog stout cases and after that a proper floor. Wee completely rerenovated the old pub turning a bedroom and that room into a concrete floor gaming room and that is how I scored the old bar, nearly died when I was the guys using it as scaffolding planks loaded with stone and mortar. It is my intention to put the bar or section of it back together one of these days, the State of South Australia barely predates it by a year. It was a bar a long way from any law way past the frontier, if only those tankard dents could talk.
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Re: Oldest Bar

Post by The Baker »

When I had my underground cellar/ above ground bar-and-guest-room (fold down bed & separate toilet and shower) built, the cellar shelves were made of baltic pine floorboards. From a building being demolished to make 'housing units'.
The boards were probably sixty to eighty years old then, over a hundred now. Came up beautifully.
There are also a lot of bottle racks made of the re-inforcing you put in concrete slabs, with timber surrounds.
There is a trapdoor in the upper room floor and a circular staircase.

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Re: Oldest Bar

Post by Sunshineer »

Not the oldest but still in the same building since it was built for the Black hills South Dakota gold rush in 1870s is the Moonshine gulch saloon.
https://www.travelsouthdakota.com/aberd ... lch-saloon" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow This is run by a salty old woman in her 90s and is between Deadwood and Mount Rushmore if you are ever in the area stop in and have a drink I might just be there an have one with you I spend most summers close by working my hard rock gold mine.
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