Staff Recommendations

At Polly we obviously take our booze very seriously. We are constantly tasting, mixing and sampling heaps of different product, flavours and flavour combinations. With all this drinkin’ we are, of course, going to have a new favourite drink every week, and therefore, I bring you -

Staff Recommendations!

Cocktail – *At the Drive-In
NEW to Polly!

-This is SO yummy! It’s pretty sweet, but the sweetness is tamed due to the fact that we give you a bowl of popcorn to go alone with it. That’s right folks – free snacks – yay! But, it’s not to be eaten by itself, it’s to be enjoyed with the aid of the cocktail. So, what’s in it? Licor 43, Tamborine Mountains Wattle Toffee (which has to be tasted to be believed how darn good it is!) and Chestnut liquor. Just devine, and it’s the Polly Staff favourite cocktail of the week!

 

 

*Blanche de namur-
World Beer Awards 2007 – World’s Best Wheat Beer
World Beer Awards 2009 – World’s Best Grain only Wheat Beer
Australian International Beer Awards Silver Medal 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010

Blanche de Namur

A great Autumn beer, this beautiful Belgium wheat beer has a cloudy apperance and a bittersweet citrus, spicy taste (due to orange peel and coriander)It’s a great thirst quencher, just the thing to have after you knock off after a hot days work (which is what we’ve been doing of late!)

 

The Willows Cabernet  Sauvignon 2006
NEW to Polly!

This dry red from the Barossa Valley has a medium weight and traces of eucalyptus, mint and rich chocolate, which are the stamp of the Willows Vineyard. This wine has been matured in French and American Oak Hogsheads for two years in order for it to achieve a beautiful, lengthy, delicate texture.

 

 

 

Jade VS 1898
Gold Medal Winner – Best of Class at the 2007 London International Wine and Spirit Competition

 This Absinthe was originally made in Switzerland in 1830 and was considered a premier Absinthe of the 19th Century. The only reason why the recipe survived so long was due to the fact that Jade Liquers found a bottle of unopened “CF Berger 65″ (which is what it was originally called) and was able to extract the ingredients and make the Absinthe in their French distillery.
Taste wise, it is a refreshing sweet Absinthe with a full on flavour of wormwood, fennel, anise and hyssop. We love this Absinthe due to it’s history and that it is as close to the real thing you can get!

 

 

The History of Absinth – Part III – Absinth’s fall from being the most popular drink in France to the most hated

So, last week I talked about how Absinth became a household name in French and in Switzerland in the 1800′s. We left at the point where France’s bohemian artists began to sing the praises of Absinth, and how it led to a pathway of creativity.

ohmygawd - he killed the Green Fairy!!

The Green Fairy loses her wings…
It all began in the 1870s, when the media, and most of the rich people of France, began to get behind the temperance movement. The consumption of Absinth had gone through the roof from 1876. In that year, France had drank one million litres, but by 1890, it had increased up to twenty one million. If they were to target any alchol, it was no suprise they would attack such a ‘mythical’ and popular one such as Absinth. 
The wine companies jumped on board as well, as one of the reasons Absinth had become so popular, is that wine had become hard to come by due to a phylloxera plague. The infestation targeted all of Europe, but  in France alone, total wine production fell from 84.5 million hectolitres in 1875 to only 23.4 million hectolitres in 1889.^[1] The wine makers obviously saw this as a great free advertisement to switch back to drinking wine, with their creative slogan of the day being, “Up with Wine, Down with Absinth.”
All the problems of the day (including dementia, TB, crime, etc) were blamed on the drink, and Doctors even came up with a new mental disease, “Absinthism”, whose symptoms included, “hyperexcitiability, tremors, convulsions, and hallucinations.” It was also possible, these Doctors said, for pregnant or breastfeeding mothers to pass the disease onto their child.

Proclomation banning Absinthe

A big plus for the Absinth ban was the infamous ‘Absinth murders’ which took place in Switzerland in 1905. Monsieur Lanfray, after drinking a glass of Absinth, went on a killing spree, and shot all his family members. The story shot into the media, and spurned the 1910 ban of Absinth in Switzerland. Of course, the story was widely exaggerated, and the true version was that the killer had mainly consumed quite a few litres of wine and brandy, but it was an adequate story for the papers and the masses.

A nationwide ban on Absinth then occured in America in 1912, and soon after, on the 7th of January 1915, Absinth was banned in France.

What happened then?
Many countries throughout Europe and the rest of the world would continue to ban Absinth over the next decade. Of course, this led to all the Absinth distillerys going bankrupt, thought there were a few that went underground. Bottles of Absinth would be dug up from time to time, deserted by it’s makers, and sold for a pretty penny on the black market.

Arrest that cat!!!

Pernod had to close their doors after the Absinth band, but after the WW1, they made up a new recipe  that didn’t contain wormwood, and that met with the guidelines of the French Government. The new Pernod took over Absinth’s popularity, and it became the newest drink of the cafe society.
Pernod wasn’t alone for long though, with a young man named Paul Ricard founded his own anise based aperitif, and becoming competition for the spot of France’s favourite tipple. However, in 1975, the two companies reached an agreement, and the company is now known as “Pernod Ricard.”

Coming soon – the rise of Absinth – how did the ban for lifted, and it’s place in popular culture today.