LITTLE LON DISTILLING
MAUD'S | Rhubarb & Violette Gin Liqueur
MEET MAUD & ERNEST
Ernest McCauliffe had brooded over the £65 car for weeks. He was sure he’d been cheated, a faulty vehicle, no registration papers, and every attempt to speak with the mechanic, Arthur Bridges, led nowhere. Three calls, two visits, always the same result: Bridges was out. The frustration finally tipped into resolve; Ernest later said he decided “to do him up.”
On June 1, he went to Bridges’ Essendon home with a steel file in hand. When the door opened, Ernest struck him several times on the head before Bridges managed to wrestle him to the ground and hold him until police arrived. Ernest, who had been drinking, was said to have muttered, “I made a mistake bringing a file; I should have brought a gun.” Bridges needed four stitches, and Ernest admitted to the police that he’d hit him out of anger over the car.
The charge was reduced to assault, and though Ernest pleaded not guilty, he received a one-month sentence, suspended on a two-year bond.
Around the same time in Perth, under a slight variation of his name, Ernest McCauliff was also sentenced to two years’ hard labour for stealing from a dwelling, another chapter in a string of decisions that seemed to follow the same restless, impulsive pattern.
Ernest found love within Ms Maud Compton. When? We couldn't say, and we don’t know much about her, but what we do know is that she and Ernest were running a sly grog shop out of their house, 17 Casselden Place, from 1911 until 1915. It was here that the pair was evicted by returning character, Constable Hickling, who charged McCaulifee for the crime of selling liquor without a license.
For all she put up with, and we are certain it was a lot, the least we could do was name a gin after her.
