On the Grapevine

AAP General News (Australia)
08-19-1999
On the Grapevine

By Sherrill Nixon

CHEERS TO THE GREAT AUSSIE PUB

Bet you didn't know that the Commercial Hotel in Swan Hill, Victoria, once hosted a meeting
of the Temperance Society.

Or that Australia's first non-alcoholic tavern opened in the building that was the Old Rose
Inn in Adelaide. (By the way, the experiment failed.)

Mark McKay does. After dedicating 20 years or so to the detailed examination of pubs all
over Australia, Mark has pooled kegs-full of trivia to write a book celebrating this great
Aussie institution.

Mark reckons he was eminently qualified for the task having downed a beer in more than 100
hotels by the time he turned 18.

"I had gotten into pubs at probably a very unhealthy early age which we won't get into too
much," says Mark, who now works as a sniffer-dog handler in Adelaide.

"A whole bunch of us, there was just something about pubs that we liked. There were discos
and footy clubs, but there was something about pubs that we liked.

"I do believe the pub does need to be lionised a bit more. There's so many things that
happen in pubs. They are the great levellers."

Now this column, which normally dedicates itself to wine, is going to veer a little this
week to reveal some of the tall tales Mark has collected. Well, pubs serve wine too, don't
they?

Mark admits he's a beer man - preferably a Cooper's Pale Ale or Stout - counts the Marble
Bar in the Sydney Hilton and Jackson's in Melbourne as his favourite pubs and says the one
thing he dislikes about modern hotels is poker machines.

He gathered the information for his book On Tap (published by Wakefield Press) by reading
local histories and newspaper articles, contacting historical societies - and by lots of
word-of-mouth.

One of Mark's favourite tales is the one about the crow at the Federal Hotel at Bemboka in
southern New South Wales.

Drinkers taught the crow to swear using a visiting politician's name, completely flustering
the MP when he couldn't work out where the heckling was coming from during his speech.

But as soon as he cottoned on, the politician made an offer to pub owner Alec Mudie for the
crow. Mudie turned it down, and when he died, the crow never again uttered another word.

Among its treasure trove of trivia, On Tap looks at pub firsts - the oldest Aussie hotel
(there's some dispute), the first drive-in bottle shop in the world (the Highway Inn in
Adelaide) - bushrangers, animals, the arts and pubs.

There's a pile of quirky pub names - would you go to an establishment named the Dog and
Vomit? - and dozens of yarns about pub sports including the Marbles World Championship held in
Brisbane's Caxton Hotel every year.

But one of my favourite stories is about publican Robert McAllister, who took over the
Carnarvon Hotel in WA in May 1912. That very night it burnt to the ground, investigators
declaring there were no suspicious circumstances.

Later, in 1926, McAllister took over the Port Hotel - it was ablaze within two weeks. He
then took over the Settler's Hotel in February 1927. But there was no third time lucky -
within hours, it also was burnt to the ground and never rebuilt.

THE ONE BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY

Here's another piece of trivia to baffle you - every day, Australian winemakers ship more
than 670,000 bottles of table wine overseas.

That figure was revealed this week when the Winemakers' Federation of Australia celebrated
a new export landmark.

Wine exports exceeded $1 billion a year for the first time in July, just weeks after the
industry announced it had crushed one million tonnes of grapes for the first time in the 1999
vintage.

But federation president Brian Croser says there's still plenty of room to move up -
despite the dramatic growth in Australian wine exports, we still have less than four per cent
world market share.

NEW RELEASE

It was only nine months ago that the quirky Soho Semillon Sauvignon Blanc and Shiraz
Chardonnay were launched, taking the fancy of the young and trendy around Australia.

The release was so successful that Southcorp has now added a sparkling Soho Cuvee Brut to
its fashion-wine fold.

A non-vintage, medium-dry fruity bubbly, it is made from a blend of grapes including
sauvignon blanc, riesling and white frontignac from South Australia and Victoria.

The Soho team suggests sipping it with a platter of sushi, salt and pepper squid or on its
own. It's available for about $9.95.

AAP sn/jnb

KEYWORD: ON THE GRAPEVINE

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