When one thinks of Jer­ry Collins, one’s mind imme­di­ate­ly turns to … elder­flow­ers. That’s because Mat­ter­horn’s “Jer­ry Collins” cock­tail (a ver­sion of the clas­sic Tom Collins) incor­po­rates such man­ly ingre­di­ents as elder­flower cor­dial and fei­joa vod­ka. That’s hard­ly news to Welling­to­ni­ans, but its fame has spread across the Tas­man and got a whole arti­cle in the Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald’s “Rug­by Heav­en” (hat tip to Dun­can in Syd­ney for the link).

When I asked the bar staff about it this morn­ing, they had­n’t heard of the arti­cle, but they were amused to read their boss’s quote that “When the All Blacks or Hur­ri­canes play in Welling­ton and feel like going to a bar for a drink they can come to the Mat­ter­horn and nobody will mob them for auto­graphs, or in many cas­es even know who they are”. They prob­a­bly get mis­tak­en for mem­bers of Fat Fred­dy’s Drop.

Appar­ent­ly the name is iron­ic. Real­ly? I thought it was because elder­flow­ers are a diuret­ic.