Every great journey begins with a questionable decision. For Lemuel Gulliver, it was boarding a ship.
For Mr. Raven, devoted collector of remarkable experiences, it was wandering into a bar inside Conrad Dublin on an impossibly beautiful August weekend. Thankfully, this voyage ends with considerably better cocktails.
Travel has changed. Today’s luxury traveler isn’t simply searching for five-star hotels or beautiful suites—they’re searching for stories they’ll tell long after they’ve unpacked. The destinations that stay with us aren’t always the grandest. They’re the ones that surprise us, spark conversation, and make us feel like we’ve stepped into another world.
Hidden just beyond the elegant lobby of Conrad Dublin lies exactly that kind of place.
Lemuel’s isn’t simply a cocktail bar. It’s literary time travel—with excellent bartenders.
Named for Jonathan Swift’s endlessly curious explorer, every detail inside Lemuel’s pays homage to Gulliver’s Travels. Velvet banquettes, polished brass, softly glowing lamps, and shelves worthy of a great library create the feeling that you’ve wandered into the private salon of a well-traveled adventurer who insists every great story should come with something exceptional in your glass. And that’s precisely the point.
The newly launched cocktail menu isn’t organized by spirits or flavor profiles. It’s organized by voyages. Every chapter follows Gulliver’s extraordinary adventures, inviting guests to travel from Lilliput to Brobdingnag, through floating islands, philosophical horses, political satire, and all the wonderfully absurd places in between. The result is less cocktail list, more passport.
The adventure begins with First Sandings, where discovery tastes every bit as exciting as it sounds.
1699 – The Departure captures the moment Gulliver first sets sail before fate—and a violent storm—changes everything. Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva Rum meets banana, demerara, tonka bean, and chocolate bitters in a cocktail that’s deep, warming, and just dramatic enough to make you thankful your own arrival involved a taxi rather than a shipwreck.
Then comes 1706 – Giants and Perspective, inspired by Brobdingnag, where Gulliver suddenly becomes the tiny curiosity. Built around Redbreast 12-Year Irish Whiskey with cherry brandy and black cardamom, it’s rich, complex, and a gentle reminder that travel has a remarkable way of adjusting our perspective—sometimes with giants, sometimes with jet lag.
Even the lighter cocktails carry Swift’s signature wit.
Rope-Star, inspired by the famously ridiculous rope-dancing politicians of Lilliput, blends Bombay Citron Presse Gin, Chambord, passionfruit cordial, and Prosecco into something bright, elegant, and delightfully sparkling—a diplomatic solution to modern politics, if only for one evening.
Meanwhile, Nardac transforms Jameson Black Barrel Irish Whiskey, oaked syrup, Irish salted butter, and coffee soda into one of the menu’s most distinctly Irish creations. Comforting, playful, and beautifully unexpected, it proves that heroism occasionally arrives garnished. The journey deepens with Islands of Curiosity, where Swift’s imagination becomes wonderfully stranger.
The Saputan Sip of Wisdom balances Altos Plata Tequila, Chardonnay, rice milk, mint, lime, and saline into a cocktail inspired by philosophers who occasionally managed to overthink absolutely everything. It’s bright, refreshing, and considerably easier to understand than eighteenth-century satire.
Then there’s The Master, perhaps the menu’s quiet masterpiece. Del Maguey Vida Mezcal, crystal-clear tomato water, Crémant cordial, and Tajín create an elegant, almost meditative cocktail inspired by the perfectly rational Houyhnhnms. It’s refined, restrained, and somehow manages to make tomato water feel positively luxurious.
By the time guests arrive at Beyond Return, the journey becomes something more reflective.
Like Gulliver himself, the cocktails have evolved.
A Box in the Sea—crafted with Hendrick’s Gin, Kinsale Atlantic Irish Mead, Irish honey, saline solution, and Crémant—captures the feeling of standing on Ireland’s coastline with salt in the air and nowhere urgent to be. It’s less about reaching a destination than appreciating how far you’ve traveled.
That’s what makes this address remarkable.
The cocktails are exceptional, yes. The craftsmanship is meticulous. The ingredients thoughtfully sourced. But none of those qualities alone explain why the experience lingers. Storytelling does.
Jonathan Swift understood that centuries ago. His greatest adventure was never really about tiny people or giants. It was about perspective, human nature, and seeing familiar places through unfamiliar eyes. Lemuel’s quietly does the same thing.
Every menu page reveals another chapter. Every cocktail introduces another character. Every conversation begins with, “Why is this one called that?”
And suddenly strangers become fellow travelers.
Perhaps that’s the future of luxury hospitality.
Not simply beautiful places, but meaningful ones.
Places where design has purpose, where every ingredient belongs, and where guests leave remembering not just what they drank—but the story they became part of.
Mr. Raven came to Dublin expecting an exceptional weekend. He left having traveled through an eighteenth-century adventure—without ever leaving his bar stool. Unlike Gulliver, however, he’d happily return.
By: Chris Flanagan
