How to Stock and Style an Irish Bar Cart

I’m so excited for this post today. For the longest time, I’ve been envisioning stocking up the perfect Irish bar cart with some of our favorite Irish whiskey and mixers and snapping a few photos to share with you. A few weeks ago, I stopped by my friend Naomi’s house and I styled it up this gorgeous bar cart and she snapped a few photos.

April & the Bear lent us this awesome industrial trolley and we poured up some of our favorite whiskey and added a few other essentials for beautiful bar cart inspiration. Here’s what we put together!  Michael is the cocktail expert in our house. He loves mixing up drinks and they’re always nicer than when we order them in bars (plus they’re not €10 a pop! Hate that!). We have a few bottles of bitters I picked up in Maine last year and those expensive little bottles last forever! I’d love to stock up on some Irish bitters but I can’t really justify it until we use up one of the little bottles we already have.

We like to make sure we have lots of lemons and limes on hand, as well as mint. You can never go wrong with those ingredients! To keep your bar cart from getting too cluttered, use a few little trays and jars to keep things organised. Little dishes or low baskets work great for corraling glasses and utensils. Just make sure you can wipe them down easily – my bartender tends to get everything sticky! And you can keep a cute tea towel hunt over the side for those sticky situations.  As for stocking a bar cart with Irish spirits, we start with whiskey, obviously. Teeling Whiskey recently opened a brand new distillery and visitor centre in Newmarket Square in Dublin. It’s the first new distillery to open in Dublin in over 125 years! And the space is beautiful. I got a preview peek before it opened in June and it’s beautifully designed with a cool cafe and gallery space as well as the distillery area. Teeling has been distilling in Ireland for decades, but this space in Dublin means visitors can see their process up close. The hop-on hop-off buses have also recently added the stop to their route, which means it’s quite easy to get there without getting the least bit lost. And on the last Sunday of every month, you can also visit the Dublin Flea Market in the same square!

In addition to Teeling, we’ll often pick up Green Spot or Yellow Spot, both distilled in Middleton, just outside of Cork. We’re fans of Clontarf 1014 as well, and my brother tells me Jameson Black Barrel is a pretty good option if you’re a Jameson fan looking for something slightly fancier.

You’ll likely need a few other options than just whiskey, though, and Dingle Gin and Vodka are delicious and also distilled in Ireland at their Dingle distillery. We always keep a high-end tequila (sorry, no Patron, say the real tequila fans!) or mezcal on our bar cart, but unless I’m mistaken, there’s no Irish tequila option available…yet. Wouldn’t that be fun!

The perfect Irish bar cart also needs a great Irish mixer, like Richmount Elderflower Cordial, with which I am a tad obsessed. It makes this Elderflower Mint cocktail/mocktail taste perfectly delicious, and I’m pretty sure it’s the only Irish-made elderflower cordial. It’s a family operation and they make a big batch once a year at the start of summer. Their website has a list of places around the country where you can find it.

There are tons of Irish craft beer options, and I dare say Michael has tried nearly all of them at this point. I don’t drink beer (not a fan of bubbles!), but Michael’s absolute favorite is the Kinnegar brand, brewed in Donegal. Our fridge always has one or two of their Scraggy Bay India Pale Ales, which I don’t mind because their labels are really colorful and cheerful – and simple for non-beer drinkers to remember. Whenever I want to surprise Michael, I just remember to get the cheery yellow label! Here’s a tip for bigger beer fans – French Foodie in Dublin is doing a series right now featuring different Irish craft beers taste tested by her fiance. It’s a good resource for craft beer enthusiasts! And the Beernut blog looks like a great place to start as well – very thorough!

And that rounds out the recipe for the perfect Irish bar cart. What would you add? Is it cocktail time yet? Earlier in the summer, I was at two different events that had Teeling whiskey cocktails and they were both delicious. I’ll be sharing one of them with you soon!

Photos by Naomi Hill / Bar cart from April & the Bear / Dingle Gin and Vodka from Carryout.ie / Special thanks to Teeling Whiskey for making this post possible.