Advertisement

barrelhouse (n.)

"cheap saloon, often with an associated brothel," by 1875, American English, so called in reference to the barrels of beer or booze typically stacked along the wall. See barrel (n.) + house (n.).

Q. What was this place you rented? — A. It was a room adjoining a barrel-house.
Q. What is a barrel house? — A. It is a room where barrels of whisky are tapped, a very inferior kind of whisky, and the whisky is sold by the glassful right out of the barrel. It is a primitive coffee house. [Committee Report of the 43rd Congress, Select Committee on Conditions of the South, 1874-75]

Others are reading

Advertisement
Definitions of barrelhouse from WordNet

barrelhouse (n.)
a cheap drinking and dancing establishment;
Synonyms: honky-tonk
From wordnet.princeton.edu