WORDS Declan Paul Johnston
Lingering aromas of tobacco, stored in three-legged velvet topped stools which stand like vats of pre-smoking ban nostalgia; dark wood bars with shadows and varnish masking decades of stains better not contemplated; pictures of a main street once in blurry black and white, now faded to sweeping grey by sunlight permitted by the solitary window: why does it seem like so many Irish bars were mapped from the one blueprint? (And who exactly drew this blueprint? It would seem they have made the single most influential contribution to Irish interior design in the twentieth century.) Dublin’s new bars, though, go to great pains to create something different from this formulaic scene. Yet it seems veneer flooring, lampshades smothered in Victorian wallpaper patterns, and a series of seemingly random objects and glass panels strung up on the walls and backlit by deep purple and blue form a set of new basic ingredients for a bar. And so it is with Copán cocktail bar on the Lower Rathmines Road.
They have their own touches, of course. A Mayan theme manifests itself most evidently in the bizarre smoking area. This jungle clearing, complete with waterfalls, raised canopy and clay hut, is at odds with the rest of the bar, which is a visual cacophony of candles and neon — a temple of trendiness. A definite sense of going through proverbial motions pervades. There is a satisfying juxtaposition in the front bar though, where lampshades fashioned into oversized orbiting copper bullets adorn a well-stocked bar that could actually resemble any other in Ireland. It even has regulars propping it up with stout and wrinkled copies of the Evening Herald. Blueprints colliding.
What should set Copán apart, though, is the menu. The selection shows a pleasing level of innovation. There are some creations, some standards and some shooters. The price of €5 per cocktail encourages experimentation. Myself and my drinking partner were enticed. We had a Summer Breeze (vodka, St. Germain elderflower liqueur, cranberry and apple juice) and an Atlantic (Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum, amaretto, Blue Curaçao, lime and apple juice) to start. Though generous in proportion, they lacked a significant punch. That said, the cocktails provided a vessel for some interesting liquor flavours – the St. Germain and amaretto were followed by cachaça in a Copán Caipirinha and sloe gin in a Sloe Comfortable Screw. While the staff are laid-back, the bartenders know what they are doing, a quality not to be undervalued in Dublin. There are bars in Dublin with more of that mysterious quality reviewers call “character” and bars which craft better cocktails, but Copán (especially for its pricing scheme, which allows for a number of drinks) provides a comfortable if not particularly memorable night. Bring good company.
