Pub bitch: Paddy's Day special

Whiskey in the jar

We all know UK pubs are seeing beer sales tumbling and spirit sales booming, but our boozers have some catching up to do if they're going to match a bar in the US viz the latter. For the third year running the imaginatively named Local Irish Pub in Minneapolis has been named the venue that sells the most Jameson whiskey in the world. It shifted a staggering 671 12-bottle cases last year, equating to 22 bottles a day. Now, I know the Yanks like to 'free-pour', but this still works out at a thumping 660 25ml measures of Jameson served daily. And people say us Brits have a drink problem…

Something for the ladies​

Despite the recession, the food and drink industry turned out in force to flog their latest ideas at the IFE show in London's 'glamorous' Docklands.

Korea's Hite brewery ambitiously picked the week of St Patrick's Day to launch its stout into the UK market - very quaffable, but the lads at St James Gate won't be worrying just yet. For sheer brass neck though, the prize has to go to the lot promoting a new range with signs reading: "At last! A range of fruit and herb teas designed with women in mind!" Versus the aggressively macho, testosterone-fuelled peppermint and raspberry infusions currently on the market, presumably?

Bring me sunshine​

I know licensees want to bring a bit of sunshine into their pubs but this is ridiculous. Reports reach me that the landlady of the Pub In The Square, in Buckie, Banffshire, Scotland, erroneously replaced the blue light-strip bulbs over her bar with high-powered ultra-violet ones, causing some members of staff to suffer what were described as "bad burns and sunstroke". That said, for most of my Scottish rellies, walking out of doors during the fading light of day is usually enough to do much the same…

A feckin' rip-off?​

The spirit of St Patrick's Day didn't stretch as far as O'Neills in Central London, where I was asked to stump up a whopping eight quid just to cross the threshold. And from 7pm too. On one of the first really sunny days of the year, and with more people going to the pub than had been the case in yonks, I thought it rather mean-fisted an exercise, until I learned such a charge was apparently part of the pub's licensing terms, due to its 2am closing and it being a music venue. That may well be the case, but since the place was rammed to the gunnels it still felt like Mitchells & Butlers, O'Neills' operators, had happened upon a licence to print money…

Homer does Dublin​

We recently featured a personal hero of mine, Homer Simpson, on this here page and last week the man - OK, the cartoon character - visited Dublin with his dear old dad to celebrate St Patrick's Day in a specially recorded episode of The Simpsons. True to form, the pair got drunk and then bought the bar they were drinking in.

Unfortunately they discovered trade wasn't up to much. Why, you ask? Yep, you've guessed it: the smoking ban. A case of many a true word spoken - or conveyed via the medium of the cartoon - in jest…

Send your stories and pictures about people in pubs to pubbitch@thepublican.com​​