Cocktail stories: Barrelling By, The Sidecar, Dublin
The Sidecar bar in Dublin’s Westbury hotel offers a high-class Guinness cocktail inspired by a lowbrow serve.
*This feature was originally published in the May 2026 issue of The Spirits Business magazine.
Do you remember when you first started drinking? I used to drink cider with blackcurrant cordial – as if Strongbow weren’t sugary enough. If you’re Irish, though, you may have started on the Emerald Isle’s equivalent, the Guinness and Black.
This unexpected combination is one of the inspirations for a drink named Barrelling By at the Sidecar bar at the Westbury hotel in Dublin – a much more high-class venue than the bars in which I had my first pints. Part of the Dublin Unfiltered menu, the cocktail pays homage to local tastes as well as referencing more sophisticated serves like the Sgroppino.
“Our style of drinks is very classically based,” explains bar manager Oisin Kelly, pointing to the Black Velvet as another inspiration for his creation. “People in some parts of the bartending world snub their noses up at certain kinds of drinks, but you’d also find them sipping on a Piña Colada – it’s a double standard.” The blending of high and low was the starting point for Barrelling By. ‘We wanted to do something that you wouldn’t expect.”
It took the team about five months to get the cocktail’s Guinness and blackcurrant sorbet to where they wanted it, including the entire St Patrick’s Day shift that Kelly spent attempting to repair a broken ice cream machine he found abandoned by the hotel’s kitchen.
As with all drinks on the Dublin Unfiltered menu, the cocktail is paired with a photograph from the city’s history. For Barrelling By, the Sidecar team found one in the Guinness archive featuring beer barrels being sent downriver by barge. “It would take four to five hours to get down the river to get to a ship, to then go out internationally,” says Kelly.
That’s a lot of time to get thirsty, with many barge workers cracking open a barrel for the journey. Understandably, Guinness took issue with this and started giving the workers tokens for a pint after work. “There were certain pubs in Dublin where you could get a bargeman’s pint,” explains Kelly. “Culturally, Guinness in Dublin is really important. They built housing, the first ambulances, and hospitals.”
Including Guinness in a cocktail was probably an obvious move for a hotel bar that welcomes guests from around the world who may know only one thing about Dublin. But more than just nodding to a neighbour, the inclusion reflects the menu’s aim. “It was about celebrating the city itself and the people inside of it,” says Kelly.
Barrelling By
Ingredients
1 Scoop of Guinness-and-blackcurrant sorbet*
Crémant, to top
15ml Móinéir Blackberry Wine
Grated white chocolate, for garnish
Add the sorbet and blackberry wine to a frozen coupe and top with Crémant. Grate white chocolate over the top to garnish.
*For the sorbet
800ml Guinness
200ml Blackcurrant cordial
800ml Glucose
10ml Vanilla extract
Method: Add Guinness to a saucepan and cook for three to four minutes for alcohol reduction. Add the remaining ingredients and cook until diluted. Transfer to a plastic container and chill. Once chilled, start the ice cream machine and add the liquid mix. After 30 minutes, remove the ice cream from the container. Freeze for a few hours, then it is ready to serve.
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