By Tania Phillips
There’s a room in the Butterworth Arms Whisky Bar, in the factory precinct in Warwick, known as The Boat Room.
Designed with a nautical flavour, the room also reflects the life and times of the Bar’s owner (and now manager) Aaron Butterworth and contains things he’s collected in his travels.
“We’ve got it coming along – we’re just playing around with it,” Aaron explained.
He said the marine-themed boat room features things he has collected from overseas, particularly Scotland, the home of his ancestors and home to very fine whisky.
“I actually went to Scotland, I have stuff from over there,” Aaron said.
“There is a famous Island over there called Islay (Isla) which is known for its smokey peaty whisky so I made a pilgrimage over there. I’ve been collecting for a few years, but we will be always changing it (what’s on display). You’ve got to mix it up, you’ve got to keep changing things. That’s what people like, they like it to be cool and not get stagnant.”
Aaron hopes it is a really great place to sip one of their many whiskys (or rums or other beverages) from around the world and just enjoy the atmosphere.
“It’s nice to have a lot to look at, it keeps the eye busy, people like that – little trinkets,” he said.
“And we have a good chat too – I have a real good chat with the clientele and if it’s quiet I sit down and have a beer with them. They are there for the experience. All I can offer is better service, they can go to a pub anywhere but what we can do is tell them where the whisky is from, we can take them around the world if they want with whisky with all the different notes, its amazing. Whisky is amazing.”
Butterworth’s started as a little hole in the wall bar last year but it has grown to something more in recent times.
“We’ve got new managers next door, it’s called the Dairy Lounge and we’re working in together, we have really good team-work,” he said.
“They’ve got a new menu and now I can use quite a few rooms inside so we have more seating capacity. “It’s warmer in winter, you don’t want to be sitting outside in winter and if it’s inclement weather you don’t want to be sitting out there. It was a bit limited before but now we’ve got more room inside, we’ve got the cardroom, the lounge, the boat room and the bar so it’s good.
“It’s very eclectic, people love it because it’s all sorts of things, it’s like a little rabbit warren in there.
“I’ve been managing (Butterworths) for two weeks now and it’s starting to pick up really well. We are going to start doing live music outside on a Sunday to. You can get out of the wind there, it’s nice in the sun at this time of year – its pretty much at the end of the River Walk.”
He said there was now a new sign out front so people know where they are and a new one coming for the building and their reputation was growing.
“We had mainly tourists come through at the weekend,” Aaron explained. He said breweries were starting to mention them on social media and they’d had brewers come to visit.
