The Bethnal Green Pub Holding the World's Largest Poitín Collection
A 1851 pub on Bethnal Green Road that doubles as a serious spirits room. Order the Irish whiskey, ask about the poitín, and stay past midnight.
Creaky wooden floors, candlelight, and a back wall stacked with bottles most Londoners have never heard of. From the door it reads as a neighbourhood pub — bar stools, pint glasses, the low hum of a Wednesday evening. Look past the taps and there is a spirits collection that would embarrass most cocktail bars in W1: the world's largest hoard of poitín, and what the bar claims is London's biggest Irish whiskey list. Two things happening in one room, both of them serious.
The building has been a pub on Bethnal Green Road since 1851 and was restored in 2014 into its current hybrid form. The pub half is honest — nobody rushes you off the stool. The cocktail half runs a tight ten-drink menu at £10 a pour, and Thursday to Saturday the room stretches to 2am with resident DJs. Come for a pint and you have missed the point.
A working East End pub with the world's largest poitín collection behind the bar — and most first-timers walk out having ordered a lager.
Editorial Deep
Ten cocktails, all £10, all built around a spirit worth thinking about. Joyride pulls a homemade whisky through pistachio, matcha, and curry leaf into something long and savoury; Return of The Mac stacks El Dorado 3 and Camazotz Oaxacan rum with guava and macadamia; The Real Housewives lands blanco tequila and mezcal against prickly pear, manzanilla, and a smoked almond garnish that earns its place. These are cocktail-bar drinks at pub prices, and the gap between the ambition and the ticket is where the value sits.
Low ceilings, candles on every surface after dark, wooden floors that announce every trip to the bar. The 1851 bones are visible in the woodwork and the bar stools, and the restoration kept the pub feel rather than sanding it into a lounge. Lighting is warm and dim enough by 9pm that the room reads as a cocktail bar; earlier in the evening it reads as what it is, a Bethnal Green local with a serious back bar.
East London locals through the week, a mix of Bethnal Green regulars who treat it as a pub and drinkers who have come specifically for the whiskey shelf. Weekends tilt younger and louder once the DJs start, but the crowd stays neighbourhood rather than destination — no queue outside, no door policy to negotiate, no dress code beyond turning up. The room is small enough that a full Friday feels close without feeling squeezed, and the pub half of its identity keeps the energy loose. If you want a scene, this is not one; if you want a bar that fills up with people who live nearby, this is the room.
Avoid the temptation to treat it as a pint stop. The move is to build the tab around what the bar does best: cocktails at £10 each, with a poitín pour or an Irish whiskey to follow. That is cocktail-bar drinking given the spirits behind it.
Come back on a Thursday when the bar shifts from pub to late room around 10pm — the candles take over, the DJ starts, and the poitín conversation gets longer. That is the version of this bar worth returning for, and it runs through to 2am Thursday to Saturday. Sunday to Wednesday it closes at midnight and stays in pub mode; fine for a quiet whiskey, less the reason to cross town. The limit is anyone expecting a polished West End cocktail room. This is a working East End pub with a serious spirits programme bolted on, and the pub always wins the tie.
Order this
Drink this.
Gael Gigolo cocktail, then a poitín pour recommended by the bar
“A neighbourhood pub with a spirits collection worth crossing London for.”
Go for the poitín, the Irish whiskey shelf, and a £10 cocktail menu that punches well above its ticket. Skip if you want a polished West End cocktail room — this is a working East End pub first, and the pub always wins the tie. Thursday to Saturday after 10pm is the version to return for.
The Verdict
