Claire Davey, America Village Apothecary Tasting Room

When it comes to drinking, Claire Davey is an alien.
Ms Davey doesn’t think drink the way we humans think drink. Where we think and drink conventionally, Ms Davey is unconventional, and illogical. Her perspective is oblique, tuned to a different pitch, and America Village Apothecary Tasting Room is Galway city made carnate: out west, out there, out of this world.
Claire’s America Apothecary tinctures and tonics have long been amongst the most quixotic things that you can drink or add to drinks. And with her year-old Tasting Rooms on Galway’s Dominick Street, in the West End, she has fashioned a bar quite unlike any other drinking destination in Ireland.
AVA is an old chemist’s shop, which today looks like an alchemist’s lair. It doesn’t look or feel like an Irish bar, in any way. It’s the bar from Mars, or Alpha Centauri. It looks like a bar designed by Claire Davey. It’s class.
And classier still are Ms Davey’s signature concoctions. The Gather Forth puts white port, house tonic, lemon zest and rosemary into a sublime libation. Hot port comes with elderberry tincture. The Communion melds vermouth with Lacuesta Reserva – a Spanish vermouth – and smoked spruce, and comes with a little biscotti on the side. You would get up early on a Sunday morning and head to Mass if they were offering this.
People, we are a long way from the pint of plain here. We are in deep space, drinks-wise, we are off with the aliens, and it’s exhilarating. Do not miss America Village Apothecary Tasting Rooms: there is nowhere else even remotely like it.