Mrs. Alicia Bond’s brothel on Lonsdale Street was so quiet, no one suspected a thing… That was until archaeologists unearthed her backyard in 1988. What gave her debaucherous business away? A curious stash of 77 champagne bottles, 300 oyster shells, and, most intriguingly, ten bottles of absinthe—the infamous "green fairy" of the 19th century, rarely found in such quantities in the back alleys of Melbourne’s infamous red light district.

Alicia arrived in Melbourne’s notorious Little Lon district from Ireland in the 1850s, a widow with three children. After a wayward stint with the law, she told the court, “I could not see my children starve.” And so her illicit dealings began, first in a back-lane cottage, then in a house of her own on the main street, complete with a grocery shop as a respectable front.

Far from a dingy den, Alicia’s establishment catered to the city’s elite. The luxury items in her rubbish; oysters, fine glassware, and especially the absinthe, suggest a brothel of some standing, styled to attract clients with a taste for elegance and indulgence.

What the records barely whispered, the absinthe bottles shouted: Mrs. Bond’s business was both survival and savvy, hidden in plain sight and poured with flair.