Drinking History Tours

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Drinking History Tours Explore Melbourne with four great tours. Uncover history, secrets, and superb times - linktr.ee/drinkinghistorytoursaus

21/10/2026

🦁🍸 A LION ON THE LOOSE, A COCKTAIL TO RAISE THE DEAD & ANOTHER V/LINE STATION!

We’re having a drink at every station on Victoria’s V/Line network, and after drinking our way across Gippsland, we’ve finally made it home to Flinders Street Station! 🚂🍻

In 1911, a lion named Wallace escaped from a magic show at the Melbourne Opera House, wandered through Rainbow Alley and took himself for a stroll through the C*D. Police were called, crowds gathered, and even the fire brigade reportedly got involved before Wallace was safely returned to Melbourne Zoo.

For our drink, we headed to one of our favourite hidden bars, Aster in Tattersalls Lane, where Ali taught us how to make their mezcal-based Ghost Reviver cocktail. Designed to bring you back from the dead, or alternatively, a particularly big session on the Gippsland line. 💀🍹

🎃 HALLOWEEN – SATURDAY 31 OCTOBER!

We’re running a special Hidden Bars and Creepy Tales Tour, exploring Melbourne’s darker history before stopping at Aster just in time for their Halloween party! Come along and join us.

🍻 DRINKING HISTORY TOURS

We’re Melbourne’s premier hidden bar and history tour experience, exploring the city’s fascinating past, secret bars and historic laneways.

Join us for tours across Melbourne’s C*D and Fitzroy, or book us for private events, corporate functions and Christmas parties. Gift vouchers also available!

We’re pub crawling to every railway station on Victoria’s V-Line network. Can you work out where we are in this photo? W...
15/10/2026

We’re pub crawling to every railway station on Victoria’s V-Line network.

Can you work out where we are in this photo?

We’ve got tours running this weekend, check out our website to learn more!

14/10/2026

🍻🚂 Drinking at every V/Line station in Victoria — BUNYIP!

A town named after a mythical swamp monster, which moved twice, was once so miserable that a visiting journalist basically told people to get straight back on the train, and had some seriously questionable pub behaviour.

In 1892, the Railway Hotel ended up in court over allegations of drunken singing, undercover police investigations and a woman performing dressed as a man. And that was just the beginning of Bunyip’s legal troubles.

Throw in an undercover grog detective, a gambler collapsing in court, a kid skipping school to w**d onions, and a pub that burned down, and Bunyip has a surprisingly chaotic history. 🍺

We stopped in at the historic Railway Hotel, which has been serving the town since the 1800s, to investigate over a b**r or two.

Another station ticked off in our increasingly ridiculous attempt to drink our way around Victoria’s railway network.

Follow along to see where the next train takes us! 🚂

09/10/2026

🚂🍻 Drinking at every V/Line station in Victoria — Trafalgar!

A town named after defeating Napoleon, that briefly renamed the station for just 28 days, and was once home to a group of horsemen preparing to defend Gippsland against a possible Russian invasion. 🇷🇺🐎

Welcome to Trafalgar, where the railway arrived in 1878, an enormous swamp was drained to make way for potato farms, and locals later prepared evacuation routes and dug air-raid trenches in case the Japanese invaded during WWII.

Oh, and the old butter factory is now full of Holdens. Because why not? 🚗

Naturally, we finished our history lesson with a b**r at the historic Criterion Hotel. 🍺

Another station down on our increasingly ridiculous mission to have a drink at every station on Victoria’s V/Line network.

Follow along as we discover the weird, wonderful and occasionally drunken history of regional Victoria, one railway station and one pub at a time.

Bit of a long shot, but does anyone know who owns the old Coach & Horses Inn at Clarkefield?We’re working our way around...
07/10/2026

Bit of a long shot, but does anyone know who owns the old Coach & Horses Inn at Clarkefield?

We’re working our way around Victoria having a drink at every V/Line station, and Clarkefield is coming up.

The old bluestone Coach & Horses dates back to around 1857, from the days when this was a stopping point for travellers heading towards the goldfields. The larger Clarkefield Hotel next door followed in 1874. Over the years the place has also picked up a reputation for being one of Victoria’s more haunted old pubs, whether the ghosts agree is another question.

Sadly, the pub is now closed.

We’d absolutely love to get in touch with the owners and, with their permission, have a look inside and film a little of its history for the series.

So if you own it, know who owns it, know someone who knows someone, used to work there, drank there, or have any other Clarkefield connections, please send us a message.

We promise not to break in. And if there are ghosts, we’ll buy them a b**r.

06/10/2026

🍺🚆 Drinking at every station on Victoria’s V/Line network: BAIRNSDALE

We’ve made it to the end of the Gippsland line — and Bairnsdale has delivered one of the stranger episodes so far.

A town built around the Mitchell River and Gippsland Lakes, Bairnsdale became an inland port before the railway arrived in 1888.

Then things got interesting.

🍺 A massive railway hotel opened opposite the station
🚢 The SS Gippsland went from carrying passengers on the lakes to serving with the Navy
🍻 A visit from famous prohibition campaigner Tennyson Smith ended in a riot
🚆 Locals physically stopped the last passenger train from leaving Bairnsdale in 1993 — then spent nearly 11 years fighting to get it back
🎨 An Italian migrant picking peas during the Depression turned out to be a trained artist who painted the extraordinary interior of St Mary’s Catholic Church
🐦 And there was a very swoopy magpie

All while we continue our completely sensible mission to have a drink at every station on Victoria’s V/Line network.

🍸 Want to drink some history with us in Melbourne?

Drinking History Tours combines Melbourne’s best hidden bars, weird history and great stories for a night out that’s actually a bit different.

With tours through Melbourne’s C*D and Fitzroy, we’re perfect for Christmas parties, work functions, team events and private groups — and gift vouchers are available if you’re looking for a Christmas present that isn’t another candle or pair of socks.

Book a tour, organise your Christmas function or grab a gift voucher through Drinking History Tours.

02/10/2026

We’re having a drink at every station on Victoria’s V/Line network — and this time we’re in Traralgon. 🍺🚆

Traralgon has given us one of the stranger episodes of the trip so far.

There’s the bloke who put his hand against a circus tiger’s cage in 1912 and discovered that tigers do, in fact, behave like tigers. Then there’s the other “Gippsland Tiger” — the mysterious animal supposedly roaming the region in the 1930s, with sightings and stories spreading across Gippsland.

We also get into how Traralgon grew from an early stopping place into one of Gippsland’s major railway towns, the story behind its name, and how pieces of a former Walhalla pub ended up incorporated into a house in Traralgon.

And naturally, we finish at the Crown Hotel — where during the era of 6pm pub closures, local history records that Friday nights once saw husbands waiting around while their wives shopped until 9pm. Apparently the Crown became “like a beehive” until the police intervened and about 30 gentlemen ended up having to explain their presence in the hotel to a magistrate.

A proud local tradition of achieving very little shopping while at the pub.

🍻 About Drinking History Tours

Drinking History Tours runs Melbourne’s hidden-bar and history tours, combining the strange, scandalous and often boozy stories of Melbourne with some of the city’s best hidden bars.

We run tours through Melbourne C*D and Fitzroy, including Hidden Bars & Laneway Legends, Hidden Bars & Creepy Tales, Wh**ky Bars & Gin Joints, and Fitzroy: Gangsters to Glamour.

We’re also available for private tours, corporate events, team functions and group bookings.

Follow along as we attempt the extremely sensible task of having a drink at every station on Victoria’s V/Line network.

Drinking History Tours — Melbourne history, one pub at a time.

01/10/2026

🚆🍺 We’re having a drink at every station on Victoria’s V/Line network — and this time we’re in Yarragon.

Yarragon might be one of the prettiest little towns on the Gippsland line today, but its history gets surprisingly weird.

The town grew around the railway after the station opened in 1878, originally under the name Waterloo. From there came timber tramways running into the Strzelecki Ranges, a booming dairy industry, and enough pubs that Yarragon once had around five of them.

Then things get stranger.

One local farmer built what was described as potentially the most scientifically advanced piggery in the world — complete with its own 84-foot tramway for feeding the pigs.

In 1906, a Yarragon cow was reported to be producing around 74 pounds of milk a day, with newspapers claiming her output could be an Australian record, “if not the world”.

And in 1903, while the local policeman was away, a gang of eight men descended on Yarragon, threatened residents and broke into the local creamery. One was caught by the stationmaster filling his billy from a cream can. With no policeman around, the locals got hold of the key to the lock-up, detained the offenders themselves and gave the rest of the gang ten minutes to leave town.

All perfectly normal Gippsland behaviour.

So join us for another stop on our attempt to have a drink at every V/Line station in Victoria, exploring the railway history, pubs and wonderfully strange stories of Yarragon along the way.

🍻 About Drinking History Tours

Drinking History Tours (DHT) is Melbourne’s premier hidden bar and history tour experiences, combining the best of Melbourne’s bars with the stories, characters and history that shaped the city.

We run a range of Melbourne hidden bar, history and drinking tours through the C*D and Fitzroy, exploring laneways, historic pubs, ghosts, true crime, cocktail bars and some of the city’s best hidden venues.

DHT tours are also available for private bookings, corporate functions, team Christmas events, birthdays and group experiences in Melbourne.

Find out more and book a tour with Drinking History Tours.

27/09/2026

A drink at every V/Line station — Warragul 🍻🚆

Warragul owes a fair bit to the railway. Before the trains arrived, nearby Brandy Creek was the main settlement. Then the railway came through Warragul, and suddenly everyone had somewhere else to be.

Building a town in the Gippsland mud wasn’t straightforward. One early settler recalled that a travelling theatre company’s wagon broke down, leaving the performers to wade through waist-deep mud just to reach the footpath. A dramatic entrance, even by theatrical standards.

The railway eventually brought Warragul a grand station and refreshment rooms.

According to local railway recollections, staff would get a telegram from Drouin warning that a Saturday football train was on its way, then line up as many as 100 b**rs for the passengers. We’re clearly not the first people to combine Victorian railways with an unreasonable drinking schedule.

There’s also the old railway to Noojee, with its enormous timber trestle bridges, and an 1886 ghost hunt in which four men took a loaded gun to investigate an apparition. The ghost apparently had the better of them.

We finished at the Club Hotel, which has been part of Warragul’s pub scene since at least the 1880s. These days it’s run by the Warragul Industrials Football Netball Club — a fitting end to a town with such a strong history of trains, footy and b**r.

Another station ticked off. Plenty more to go.

23/09/2026

Another stop on our attempt to have a drink at every V/Line station in Victoria. This time, Drouin!

Drouin owes much of its existence to the railway, which arrived in 1878 and helped the town overtake nearby Brandy Creek as the district’s main settlement. Brandy Creek itself was supposedly named after two blokes who threw an empty bottle of brandy into the water for luck. An outrageous waste of perfectly good brandy.

As the surrounding forests were cleared, dairying took over. The local butter factory eventually became so important that it even supplied electricity to the town.

Drouin also has some excellent pub history. The Gleeson family, who ran the Family Hotel for three generations, recalled keeping pigs out the back that would get drunk on the leftover pub slops. Meanwhile, the internationally famous Snell siblings, known as the Australian Giant Family, later ran the Robin Hood Hotel in the district.

Nearby Jackson’s Track was also home to Lionel Rose, who worked as a welder in Drouin before becoming world bantamweight boxing champion and Australian of the Year in 1968.

And in 1985, a passenger train derailed near Drouin, leaving the locomotive upside down at the bottom of an embankment. Remarkably, the crew and all 15 passengers escaped serious injury.

For our drink, we visited the Royal Hotel, which dates back to 1877. The Royal Hotel Drouin

The original building burned down in April 1907, just a month after the publican had taken over. Rather than let the destruction of the pub get in the way of business, the owner opened a temporary bar called the Dew Drop Inn while the Royal was rebuilt.

The new hotel opened in November 1907, and part of that building is still there today.

A town built by the railway, powered by butter, with drunken pigs, giant publicans and a pub that refused to let a fire interrupt the drinking.

Not a bad stop at all.

Address

Princes Bridge
Melbourne, VIC

Opening Hours

Thursday 6pm - 9pm
Friday 9am - 10pm
Saturday 6pm - 9pm
Sunday 4:30am - 7:30am
3:30pm - 7:30pm

Telephone

+61402242982

Website

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