A nip of sly grog a sincere fundraiser

WALK down to Sovereign Hill’s diggings and you might come across the colourful Polly O’Shea.

A resilient, innovative, and enterprising Irish woman, the costumed character is a miner’s widow and mother who makes and sells her own ‘sly grog’ from a tent, to keep her seven children fed.

The 1852 ST Gill illustration Big Pol the Grog Seller inspired this personality, which in 2021 has gone on to spark the outdoor museum’s latest creative and not-so-sly fundraising initiative.

With the perseverance and hard-working nature of the goldfields’ women in mind, CEO Sara Quon said Sovereign Hill has released their own boutique line of gin.

Named Sly Grog, it has been produced in collaboration with Ballarat’s Kilderkin Distillery, and is generating funds which will contribute to the establishment of their Centre for Rare Arts and Forgotten Trades.

“We worked with our head gardener Cherrie Neale around the botanicals in the gin, inspired by things that are grown here at Sovereign Hill,” she said.

Native lemon myrtle and banksia flowers are part of the Sly Grog recipe, alongside orange peel, coriander seed and rosemary.

Juniper, which would have been introduced and used within Chinese mining camps, is also featured.

“We grow rosemary in abundance at Sovereign Hill, and banksia flowers gathered from the site have been used in the distillation process,” Ms Quon said.

“It really feels like it is genuinely of our botanicals on site, and Chris Pratt and Rebecca Mathews at Kilderkin are a phenomenal partner; they’re as passionate about what they do, as we are about what we do.

“Sly Grog is a little bit of fun with a wonderful historical connection.”

Ms Mathews said the collaboration has taken about six months, from the initial idea to the release of the finished product.

“They wanted something that was fairly traditional in terms of what Polly might have made back then, and I thought it would be great to include botanicals that grew here,” she said.

“Banksia flowers were a wonderful addition, which we haven’t worked with before.”

Mr Pratt said the recipe is “totally unique” to anything Kilderkin’s ever distilled in the past.

“It will remain a Sovereign Hill product, but I have to say, we’re both really, really happy with it. It’s a good gin, and we’d love to have it in our own range,” he laughed.

“Collaborating with other Ballarat businesses is really important to us. I just hope people come on board and support Sovereign Hill.”

Sly Grog was launched last Wednesday evening on the diggings, with the Kilderkin team, Sovereign Hill board members and supporters, the Committee for Ballarat and some of their members enjoying a performance of the Polly O’Shea story by the outdoor museum’s actors, and a taste of the product.

“Now restrictions have eased for us, this was a chance to bring people together, just for an hour, to connect ahead of Christmas, and celebrate something good, in amongst what’s been a pretty tough couple of years for everyone,” Ms Quon said.

Ahead of Christmas, Sly Grog is available for purchase at Sovereign Hill, or via shopping.sovereignhill.com.au.