Did you know the term “speakeasy” did not originate during Prohibition? The term “speak easy,” was coined by American journalist Samuel Hudson back in 1889. In his book Pennsylvania and Its Public Men, Hudson recalled that while in Pittsburgh in 1889, a new city liquor licensing law reduced the number of taverns there to only 96. O’Leary explained that an elderly Irish widow who sold illegal beer and whiskey once warned her patrons, in her brogue, to “spake asy, now, the police are at the dure.” So, Hudson said, “Spake asy” became the moniker for the hundreds of unlicensed taverns in Pittsburgh. “The term had an instantaneous success, being taken up by the people and police, and it has been used ever since.”

Shhh! If you want to drink in this speakeasy, you have to follow these house rules.