The Glorious Whiskey History of The Palace Bar
This literary landmark has helped rewrite the story of Irish whiskey and there’s a seat at its bar waiting for you
Handsome as it is, the Palace Bar has always been defined by the people within it. The Widow Ryan, its former owner in the 1940s, poet Patrick Kavanagh in the 1970s, the editors of The Irish Times in the 1980s, and countless other dreamers and optimists who’ve hatched a plan for themselves within its walls. For more than five decades the Aherne family have stood behind the bar, each in their time steering this great Victorian pub through the dips and peaks of life on an Irish side street. It’s a place that allows the conversations between customers bubble up into action – the deals struck at the bar, the books plotted in the back room, the headlines rewritten, the lyrics reshaped and the love affairs masked in ‘just one more’.
This is a destination that thrives on the pulse and conversation of real life and, when you enter, you’ll become part of its story and it part of yours. Whiskey flows again here, holding its own against the perfect pint of plain, these two stalwarts of Irish identity battling for your affection. In truth, a pint of Guinness and a glass of whiskey at the bar of the Palace are a perfect foil against the world. Drink them in the tiny dark snug just inside the door and you may never appreciate a seat in a bar the same way again.
Rumour has it that it was in The Palace Bar one day in the late 1960s that an executive from the newly formed Irish Distillers Ltd. (a merger of Jameson, Powers & Cork Distilleries Company/Midleton) sat gazing upon the shelves and the range of bottles bearing the Jameson name, each with a differing label and look and promptly decided to end the supply of whiskey from Jameson’s Bow St. Distillery to whiskey bonders and bottlers around the country who would bottle the whiskey themselves, affixing their own label in the process and creating a kaleidoscope of colors and styles . Per the rumour, from that day forward Jameson would take its bottling in-house and control the look and consistency of every bottle released.
Willy Aherne is at the helm today. This tall hardworking descendant of mountainy Tipperary men (and women) carries his inherited role toward its future, acutely aware of the responsibility of keeping a pub afloat as it thunders towards its 200th year. His father and grandfather each stitched their DNA into the walls of this building and he is following suit, strengthening its foundations with whiskey.
It’s 12 years since he brought the Palace Bar’s own-brand whiskey back, in the form of a nine-year-old historic Cooley whiskey bottling. The Palace was the first pub in Dublin to restore its whiskey heritage and, in doing so, forged a connection with its historical starting point. Throughout the 19th and for a big part of the 20th century, the Palace bottled casks of whiskey in its basement, serving it by the glass across the heavy wooden bar-top upstairs before industrial bottling removed the need.
Since that first nine-year-old bottle, Willy has reimagined the Dublin whiskey story, continuing to collaborate with great Irish distilleries and brands like Dingle, Echlinville and Powerscourt Distillery while transforming what was once the family home upstairs into the Whiskey Palace. This is a stunning space that has become an engine and a sanctuary all at once.
Two fantastic collaborations with the Midleton Distillery brought The Palace Bar name to the labels of an incredible 17 year old Redbreast Single Cask – a single pot still whiskey matured in a first-fill Oloroso Sherry Butt and bottled at a mouthwatering 59.7% and a single cask, single pot still Green Spot aged in bourbon barrels before being re-casked into Bordeaux wine hogsheads. It is triple distilled, matured for 11 years and was hand selected exclusively by The Palace Bar, making the bar the first in the world to have its own exclusive Green Spot.
Willy’s latest bottling is an exclusive collaboration with Powerscourt Distillery. Together they have launched a 20-year-old single malt, single cask bottling. It spent 16 years in American bourbon and four in a ruby port cask.
Released at cask strength of 53.7%, it has resulted in a whiskey that has fused flavour and personality into an elegant and complex experience that should only really be appreciated at the Palace itself. Nonetheless, these bottles will travel far from Dublin’s Fleet Street as, with each of Willy’s releases, they become collector’s items and markers on a return to dominance of Irish whiskey.
If you’re lucky enough to try the 20-year-old, you’ll find that a drop of water unlocks aromas of autumnal fruits, blackcurrants, mustiness, vanilla and malt. On the taste the ruby port has imbued this elegant whiskey with a spice and a sweetness that is unmistakably Irish. Layers of flavour flood your mouth, coating it with rich oils and viscosity, the black peppers and honeyed malt competing for attention as you allow this superior whiskey make itself known.
It’s another triumph on the road to reinvention of the Irish whiskey story and its best told in the Palace itself. Visit in daylight, when the sun breaks through the Victorian glass skylight in the back room downstairs, highlighting the scratches and creases in the red leather seating and the dark mahogany wood of all the people who’ve come before you. It’s quiet then and you can take time to examine the artworks and photographs on the walls, each capturing a moment in the story of this historical and literary refuge.
Return then at night when the personality of the city dominates. Let The sound of Dublin’s story bounce off the walls and the cobblestones outside as you squeeze into a corner or find a stool at the bar. Catch your reflection in the Victorian mirrors as you sample a whiskey and take stock of your own story and how it has brought you to this spot at this time. Is it all by chance or do we all get one pivotal moment in the Palace Bar?
