Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a cheap saloon.

1827		A. Sherwood Gazetteer Georgia (1860) 131: Double Bridges [...] has 3 or 4 houses, with one or two Drunkeries .
1836		J. Livesey Malt Liquor Lect. in Pearce Life (1887) cl.: While about every twentieth house is metamorphosed into a drunkery .
1844		Voice of Freedom 3 Oct. 4/4: Office seekers have sought to obtain office through the influence of intoxicating drinks. [...] Evry [sic] drunkery in the whole land was a caucus room where drunkards were trained for the ballot box.
1853		Ohio Organ 9 Dec. 12/4: Stand, sir, upon the threshold of the drunkery, and the whol panorama of intemperance lies before you.
1858		‘Shadow’ Midnight Scenes 24: Our notice is arrested by a ‘few drouthy chields’ hanging around the door of a shebeen in a dirty close [...] The landlord of the drunkery slyly lifts aside the corner of the window blind.
1869		E. London Obs. 3 July 4/4: [He] asked if it was the intention of Parliament to establish what he elegantly styled ‘a drunkery’ in Victoria Park.
1875		State Journal (Jefferson City, MO) 15 May 1/4: he went to the back door of the drunkery where he had spent every farthing of his guinea.
1884		Highland Wkly News (Hillsboro, OH) 19 Nov. 4/3: This vote has made Prohibition a National issue, which will not go out of National politics till the beer shop and the drunkery have gone.
1896		Kansas Agitator (Garnett, KS) 3 Apr. 4/1: he caused the chief of police at Topeka to hunt another job because said chief tried to close up a high-toned ‘club’ or drunkery.