Dan Murphy’s Cellar: a wine and whisky treasure hunt opens on Chapel Street

A new wine and whisky experience has hit Chapel Street, and it’s one to get excited about.

The up-market Dan Murphy’s Cellar opened this month, reclaiming a spot in the heritage-listed Prahran Arcade building where the liquor giant started its story nearly 70 years ago. While there’s no freezer door involved (ahem Boston Sub), there is a truck full of history, a deeply impressive collection of hide-to-find wine and whiskies, and a liquor store experience unlike no other.

Dan Murphy’s Cellar has a hint of nostalgia

Wine merchant Dan Murphy originally opened his now-infamous liquor store at 282 Chapel Street in 1952. The Prahran store was moved across the road in the 1980s, where the Dan Murphy’s as-we-know-it-today still stands.

The Dan Murphy’s Cellar concept store has now returned the brand to its original stomping ground, opening a retail offering that is more cellar door than bottle-o. Over two floors, find floor-to-ceiling displays of wines and whiskies from all corners of the globe. With impressive imports and exclusive deals with local boutique producers, you’ll find stock that hasn’t traditionally appeared on a Dan Murphy’s shelf to date. There’s rare back vintages, a huge range of stickies and a wall of (heavily Kevlared) Penfolds Grange, with every vintage since 1951 accounted for.

You can breathe in the scent of nostalgia, with lots of little nods to the Dan Murphy’s past. Lightbox prints of the man himself line the exposed brick walls, which are styled together with wooden wine crates, prismatic pavement lights in the underground cellar level and trophy cabinets with some of the world’s rarest alcoholic finds.

No need to get the loan calculator out too, as there are discoveries for under $20. Although those who want to drop $10,000 on an imperial-sized bottle of Cristal are also catered for.

It’s a wine education, not shopping basket race

Dan Murphy’s Cellar is not an exercise in how fast you can fill a shopping basket, but rather a wine and whisky education. Take a seat in one of the leather chesterfields in Dan’s library and nerd out on every wine and whisky book under the sun, or be educated by the incredibly knowledgeable (and impeccably dressed) staff, indulge in the wines on tasting (which are served via the temperature-controlled Enomatic wine cabinets) or attend a winemaker meet and greet.

Get over to 282 Chapel Street to discover a new era of liquor store.