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A simple answer is a good pub!
The traditional pub tends to be located in the British Isles
and Ireland. Just about every village has at least one, and
an average size town will have around 10! In cities such as
Dublin and London, they are located on just about every
street corner. Nowadays there are numerous renditions of the
traditional pub in just about every major world city and
tourist destination. These reproduce the decor, but somehow
seem to miss out on reproducing the ambiance! These versions
of the pub are quite often a part of a hotel complex for
instance, or a “new” historic district.
The
ambiance of a good pub has been developed over a few
centuries. Up until 30 years ago, there were generally two
parts to a pub, the public bar and the saloon or lounge bar.
The public bar was all spit and sawdust, a stand up and drink
beer type of place. These were most generally frequented by
the blue-collar working-class crowd. The public bar would
seldom see a member of fairer sex, and quite often they would
not be welcome either. The Saloon or lounge, was generally
more comfortable and was where ladies would go for cocktails,
or glasses of wine. The male members of the landed gentry
would more likely to be found here, too, instead of in the
public bar.
Today, the split between the bars and the
social strata have both pretty much gone, literally and
figuratively. In the physical sense, most pubs have combined
the original bar and lounge spaces, or at the very least,
furnished them similarly. Most pubs now offer food, requiring
plenty of tables to sit at, too. On the social side, these
days, you are much more likely to see doctors, solicitors
(lawyers) and clergy rubbing arms with plumbers, masons and
ditch diggers all at the same bar, especially if the landlord
keeps a good pint. And the sex barrier has disappeared as
well. (However, today, as in the past, landlords are just as
apt to present a “buxom wench” behind the bar, to
attract customers.)
One aspect of pubs is their
ownership or trading arrangements. One may notice, in
England, that some pubs advertise that they are a “Free
House.” This does not mean the booze is free! What it
does mean is that the pub is not a “tied house.”
A tied house is bound to a brewery, and is most likely owned
by the brewery and then leased to or managed by the landlord.
In a tied house, the landlord or manager must sell what that
brewery offers and markets. If the brewery is a good one,
that’s OK. If not, pass it by! On the other hand a free
house is typically privately owned by the landlord or a firm
that probably owns a chain of pubs. These free houses are
“free” to sell whatever beers and booze they
like. So they frequently have several competing bitters,
stouts and lagers, to cater to their customers.
Traditional
pubs are mainly for what I would call simple drinking. Draft
or bottled beers, simple shots of booze such as scotch and
water, or a gin tonic. Getting something more esoteric such
as a Martini (American style) is challenging, to say the
least. They probably do not even have the right glassware,
let alone a concept of the recipe! This is changing, but
don’t hold your breath! Getting ice in your drinks is
optional too, in England and Ireland, and still not the
norm.
In many cases a good place to drink can be a
hotel bar. Usually a bit more expensive than a pub, the decor
is generally pleasant and seating comfortable. Waited service
may well be offered too. Hotel bars are usually for the
patrons of the hotel or its restaurant, but this is not
always true and frequently the general public are welcome, or
even encouraged to attend. There is also the pre-meal drink
cocktail aspect of hotel bars. Hotel bars offer a convenient
and pleasant place to meet one’s dinner companions or
guests before going to the dining room and sitting down for
food.
Of course
there are also the restaurants with liquor service. Most fine
establishments serve alcohol. Some may have limited licenses
and can serve only beer and wine. (A few restaurants are not
licensed at all, of course, but very few. Unlicensed premises
are usually sandwich shops, all-you-can-eat restaurants and
fast-food outlets make up the lot. There are also the new
guys in town that want to serve booze, but have not got
around to getting the license, or, in some cases, the
jurisdiction has run out of their quota! These restaurants
will usually offer the corkage or BYOB option, meaning that
it is OK to bring your own beer or wine. With the corkage
option, they will often offer to open the bottle for you. But
beware: sometimes they will charge a small fee for this
privilege. The bottom line though, is this: if the food is
very good, then it is worth it, plus you get your choice of
plonk! If the food is so-so, then avoid this type of
place.
Restaurants frequently have small bars,
sometimes to cater to people waiting for tables to free up.
Sometimes they are just that, a bar, that is attached to the
restaurant. In both these cases, they generally serve good
cocktails and have good wine lists. Beer is usually of
limited selection, and most often only bottled, not draft as
it would be in a pub.
Then, in the U.S., there are the
chain grills and bars. Notice that the 'grill' comes before
the 'bar' these days. Heaven forbid that drinking comes
before eating! There are still some hangouts of the Bar &
Grill flavor. Look out for them. Meanwhile back to modern
incarnations, such as Applebee’s, Friday’s and
the like, including several with Irish sounding names and
themes, Bennigan’s, Houlihan’s, etc. These have
distinct bar and sit-down restaurant areas. At one time, it
was likely (in some places maybe still) that the bar was for
smoking clientèle, while the restaurant section was
for non-smokers. These establishments usually have the
benefit of a good selection of both cocktails and beers, both
bottled and on tap.
There are some moves to try and
install more neighborhood bars or pubs in the US. This to
alleviate the need to drive long distances, risking life and
limb, yours and others’. We welcome this concept. It
has certainly worked, and still does, in places like Britain
and France. The drinking and driving laws everywhere, along
with one’s ethical responsibility to others, are making
it essential that one does not drive after drinking. (You can
drive to your drinking establishment choice, but then you had
better leave the car there and take a taxi home.) So having
places that one can easily walk too, or take a short bus or
cab ride to, are a better idea altogether, and one we hope
will make it to the top ten ideas of the current century, and
soon.
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