The Journal · The Brantford Club
“You Enquire About Rum?” The Bar Ledger of 1909
In 1909, the Minutes of The Brantford Club record the bar’s stock as John Jamesons XXX, Black & White, Gooderham & Worts, Guinness, and Bixell lager, brewed locally. Drinks were ten cents, Haig & Haig two for twenty-five, and the card tables rented at fifteen cents.
Nothing tells the truth about an institution like its ledgers, and the Club’s centennial history preserves the bar’s with visible pleasure. This entry reads the house accounts of the Edwardian years as they were kept: to the cent, brand by brand, with one immortal line about rum. The sums are quoted as history, not as a tariff.
What did a drink cost at The Brantford Club in 1909?
A drink at The Brantford Club in 1909 cost ten cents, and Haig & Haig went two for twenty-five, a small arbitrage the Minutes record without comment. The card tables rented at fifteen cents, and the fashion at those tables was changing: the centennial history notes that Whist was giving way to the new game of Bridge. The house’s whole economy fit in a waistcoat pocket, and the Club wrote every dime of it down.
- Irish
- John Jamesons XXX
- Scotch
- Black & White; Haig & Haig, two for twenty-five cents
- Canadian
- Gooderham & Worts
- Stout
- Guinness
- Lager
- Bixell, brewed in Brantford
“You enquire about Rum? That was not a drink we would serve.”
The Club’s centennial history, in the Secretary’s voice
The books balanced, 1906
The drink prices sat inside a working budget the history also preserves: for 1906 the Club grossed $8,444.83 and kept a surplus of $732.34, and the 1907 fees stood at fifty dollars entrance and twenty-five a year. Those figures are quoted as history; for the present day’s particulars, asking is one email. What the old numbers prove is temperament: a club that could tell you its surplus to the cent was never going to be casual about anything else.
What the ledger says between the lines
Read as a document, the 1909 bar list is a small portrait of the city: Irish and Scotch for the professionals, Gooderham & Worts for the Dominion loyalists, Guinness for the traditionalists, and a local lager because Brantford made things, beer included. The refusal of rum, delivered in the Minutes with that courtly shudder, is the same voice that ruled a member was never to be interrupted by the telephone. The house had standards and wrote them down, which is why this Journal gets to quote them.
The house measured its evenings in dimes and kept the change in the Minutes.
Questions the record answers
What was on The Brantford Club’s bar list in 1909?
Per the Minutes preserved in the centennial history: John Jamesons XXX, Black and White, Gooderham and Worts, Guinness, and locally brewed Bixell lager, with drinks at ten cents and Haig and Haig two for twenty-five.
Did The Brantford Club serve rum?
The centennial history answers in the Secretary’s own voice: rum was not a drink the Club would serve. The line is quoted on this page exactly as the book gives it.
What did it cost to join the Club in 1907?
Fifty dollars entrance and twenty-five dollars a year, per the centennial history. Those are historical figures, quoted as history; for anything current, one email to the manager gets a straight answer from a person.
Sources: the Club’s centennial history, privately printed for the hundredth year, preserving the 1909 bar list, the 1906 accounts, the 1907 fees, and the rum line from the Minutes.
The kitchen’s current cards are on the Club’s menu page; the bar keeps its own counsel.
