It was Christmas day 2000 in Ballina and we were very much anticipating the scrumptious lunch ahead of us. The day was hot and humid and what better way to start out than to have a nice cold drink? For my mum and myself it was a glass of champers, for the boys a cold beer — Cane Toad beer, in fact! It came as part of a Christmas food hamper sent by my brother. From memory, the Cane Toad beer packed a punch at 7 per cent alcohol content.
In view of this fact, my dad, not being too much of a seasoned drinker, like my husband, Steve, decided to make his into a shandy. Steve had made a special trip down to the local shop to grab a bottle of lemonade. So Dad proceeded to dilute his Cane Toad beer with the lemonade.
Each time he took a swig he couldn’t believe just ‘how strong this bloody Cane Toad beer is’, so much so that he went back to the fridge to get that bottle of lemonade about three times! What he really couldn’t understand was why the beer wasn’t getting a nice head — the more lemonade he added, the flatter it went. He thought that the strength of the alcohol must be causing the lemonade to go instantly flat!
It wasn’t until Steve noticed that the bottle of lemonade he had bought hadn’t yet been opened, that the ‘penny dropped’. Dad had been using the bottle of cold water (incidentally, in a lemonade bottle) to ‘water’ his beer down! In the end a glass of champagne was in order while Steve enjoyed his full strength Cane Toad beer! On our return to Sydney, my brother asked how Dad had enjoyed the beer … Well, um …