“There’s a story about illegal poitín being made in Leverton Street back in the seventies,” says Dave Mulligan from basement speakeasy bar Shebeen. “The guy produced the spirit in small batches for the likes of The Pogues and other Irish folk bands.”
An Irish distilled, highly alcoholic tipple (60%-90% ABV), poitín was made in a small pot still, a diminutive of the word pota (pot). “It’s an unaged white Irish spirit,” says Dave, “traditionally brewed from potatoes, whey, barley – basically anything, as it was prohibited for so long.”
In Ireland the small pots would be placed up in the hills to avoid the smoke giving away tell-tale signs: “Often windy, broken weather was chosen when cooking to disperse it. But generally every second house would have had a still.”
That wouldn’t have been quite the case in leafy Leverton Street – despite Kentishtowners’ love of a good drink. However, now the spirit is back. And this time it’s legal.
Mulligan is one half of a new brand of poitín called Bán: pronounced ‘bawn’, the name means ‘white’ in Irish; and is also a neat play on words in English for its long held illegal status.
Originally from Dublin, he moved to Kentish Town a couple of years ago to join the team at local brasserie Kentish Canteen. He became interested in Ireland’s most notorious spirit after popping home and seeing that his dad had a bottle in the house: “I’d tried it accidentally as a thirsty little young kid, just grabbing the bottle and pouring it in my mouth – big mistake. So this time I did a bit of research and discovered a big distillery in Ireland – but no-one else was using it to mix cocktails. And that seemed a real gap.”
Dave asked his dad if he could take the bottle of poitín back to K-Town to experiment. “At Shebeen we started playing with it, creating cocktails. It has a rounded, heavy flavour, very weird and wonderful; each batch is different, some heavily barleyed, others fruity – like a white wine vermouth – but the one rule is that it has to be white and overproofed. So, at least 50% ABV.”
So with colleague Cara Humphreys – and the help of West Cork Distillers – the pair set about their own concoction “that stays true to its small batch home-distilled heritage.” Bán is an eye-watering 52.7% proof – but nothing as strong as the 90% ABV that gives the drink its fearsome reputation. And no, he assures us it won’t make you go blind.
“For 350 years poitín was moonshine,” says Dave, “but 600 years before it was just poitín. And now made under license it’s poitín once again. Our ambition is simply to bring it back to the masses,” says Dave. “It’s been bastardised by state and church, something very common in Irish culture – and demonised because they were losing out on the tax.”
Poitín – a brief timeline
1661 Moonshine, along with all other private distillation not licensed by the state
1760 Poitín made became completely illegal in Ireland
1970s Poitín being distilled in Leverton Street, Kentish Town
1997 Irish Revenue Commissioners legalized poitín being sold under license, although it remains illegal in Northern
Ireland.
2013 Long live poitin!
So with London’s only dedicated poitín bar on our doorstep, why not try an, erm, “poitini” (see pic above) if you dare?
Oh, and if you like your libations served in a memorable receptacle, you’re in luck too. “We scour the charity shops of Kentish Town to find the quirkiest glasses we can,” says Dave. “So each drink arrives with its own untold history.”