Stats and facts on New Zealand pubs

On 30 October 1840, New Zealand's first liquor licence was issued to John Johnson of the Duke of Marlborough Hotel in Kororareka, now Russell. The Duke has burned down three times since, and is still pouring.

In the 1830s Kororareka (Russell) was a rowdy whaling port, long remembered as the 'hellhole of the Pacific'. By 1838 it had 20 hotels, most of them probably little more than grog shops.

The Thistle Inn opened on 10 October 1840 a few yards from the sea, before the 1876 reclamation. Sailors were said to brace themselves against the tilt of the bar floor 'as though on a deck sharply lifting in Cook Strait'.

Six o'clock closing arrived in December 1917 as a 'temporary' wartime measure and was made permanent the next year. Barmen filled jugs from hoses for drinkers standing four or five deep.

After 64.4% voted for later closing in the September 1967 referendum, pubs began opening until 10pm on Monday 9 October 1967, ending 50 years of six o'clock closing.

In the April 1919 referendum, prohibition was ahead by 13,000 votes until the special votes of nearly 40,000 soldiers, many still overseas, were counted. Most voted to keep drinking, and 'continuance' won 264,189 to 253,827.

The King Country became New Zealand's first major dry district in 1884. The last dry areas, Eden and Roskill in Auckland and Tawa in Wellington, only went wet in 1999.

When Invercargill voted to end its long prohibition in 1943, the Invercargill Licensing Trust Act 1944 created New Zealand's first licensing trust, which returns liquor profits to the community.

When West Coast publicans put the price of a 10-ounce beer up from sixpence to sevenpence in 1947, locals boycotted the 'sevenpenny pubs'. The dispute gave birth to the Coast's workingmen's clubs.

In the 1990s Blackball's old hotel was renamed the Blackball Hilton. After protests from a certain international hotel chain it became 'Formerly the Blackball Hilton', though the pub really does sit opposite Hilton Street.

The Cardrona Hotel (est. 1863) says long-time publican Jimmy Patterson rationed drinks by direction of travel: one for those about to tackle the Crown Range, two for those heading to Wanaka.

The Puhoi pub first got its liquor licence in 1879 as the German Hotel. Puhoi was settled in 1863 by German-speaking migrants from Bohemia, and the current building opened in 1900.

The first beer brewed in New Zealand was made by James Cook at Dusky Sound in 1773, from rimu and manuka, to ward off scurvy. Golden Bay's Mussel Inn has brewed its Captain Cooker manuka beer since 1995.

An 1881 law required pubs to provide meals and at least six bedrooms. Pretending to have guests staying became a handy way around six o'clock closing.

New barmaids were banned from New Zealand pubs in 1910, and the ban wasn't fully lifted until 1976.