THE SPECIAL FLAVOURS OF PERTH

 While Melbourne might like to call itself the food capital of Australia (as well as the cultural capital), when I first moved there in the early 1990s, two items were missing from supermarket shelves:

  • Chocolate Monte biscuits
  • Kole Beer.
I solved the first problem by writing to Arnotts and asking why I couldn't get my favourite biscuits in Melbourne. And full marks for customer service, they sent a reply and a couple of packets of biscuits. I took the Montes into the ABC were I was working at the time and people were somewhat bemused by my excitement over what is basically a very plain chocolate coated biscuit. Arnotts explained that as they took over state-based companies they tested biscuits out as to which lines to keep and which to discard and Victorians just didn't take to these WA biscuits. But my letter must have stimulated some further research because a few months later they started to appear in Victorian supermarkets and have stayed there ever since. Here's a photo from 1995 as I celebrate the arrival of the Monte biscuits.




It was similar story with Kole Beer which is currently produced under the brand name Kirks. Which is in fact a sub-brand of Coca Cola. The Coke people weren't as generous as the Arnotts team and although they did reply to my questioning letter about why I couldn't buy Kole Beer in Victoria, they didn't send me any complimentary product. I was reduced to packing my suitcase with cans every time I visited Perth. The story was the same as Arnotts: people outside of WA just hadn't taken to the flavour.

I'm not sure how to describe that flavour. I found a reddit stream discussing the flavour and no-one could quite capture it. A bit like a creaming soda. A bit like a root beer. A bit like cola. A bit like dry ginger ale. 

An editorial writer in the West Australian over the WA Day long weekend this year was a little more lyrical about the flavour: 


That's a great description of why it still appeals to me - served icy cold in summer or as a wonderful ice-cream sundae sitting by the pool.



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