Tasting House in ‘t Aepjen

Drop by for a drink In ‘t Aepjen. This pub is one of the remaining seventeenth century medieval tasting houses. You will find here more jenevers (Dutch gin) than you knew by name. Sample cheese, salami and liver sausage when you are feeling hungry or apple pie with frothy cappuccino if you are not in the drinking mood.

What are Tasting Houses?

In seventeenth-century Amsterdam there were no cafes or bars. Customers who wanted a tipple went to a ‘proeflokaal’, a tasting house. Here they would sample jenever (Dutch gin), or brandy before buying their favourite drink. These traditional tasting houses have now been converted into bars that still serve drinks but, unfortunately, no free samples are given anymore; all drinks have to be paid for. In ‘t Aepjen is one of these tasting houses.

Zeedijk and in ‘t Aepjen

Zeedijk is the main hub of Amsterdam’s small China Town. It is sprinkled with Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese food treats. Zeedijk meaning sea bank or sea wall may seem a strange name because there is no sea in the vicinity. But this was different in medieval days when the Zuyderzee bordered Zeedijk.

Zeedijk was part of a system of dykes and dams that protected Amsterdam from flooding. This part of Amsterdam was also the shipping quarter. The nearby Red Light District developed to see to the needs of sailors who frequented the bars and pubs in this part of town. In ‘t Aepjen was one of them.

A Monkey as payment

In ‘t Aepjen at Zeedijk no 1 is one of these old pubs. It is housed in a timbered house, one of the two remaining medieval wooden houses, (the other one is at Begijnhof off Kalverstraat). The pub started life as a hostel for seamen. The innkeeper allowed sailors to pay their drinking and gambling debts by leaving a monkey behind, which they had brought back from the Dutch East Indies.

The hostel became infested with monkeys and fleas. Sailors who lodged in this hostel were easy to spot as they scratched themselves madly and truly seemed to be in trouble. The Dutch still have a saying: in de aap gelogeerd which translates as spent the night with the monkey and means that someone is in difficulty.

These days in ‘t Aepjen is a popular pub crammed with antiques and leather armchairs. Monkeys are no longer accepted as payment, as it is cash or card only.