Do cities have a taste? Apparently, or else I don’t know what that whole Taste of Melbourne thing that happened on the weekend was about. The key thing to keep in mind when pondering this question is not to take the phrase as literally as, er, some people might be inclined. To find out what a city tastes like don’t, I repeat DON’T get down on your hands and knees and lick the steps of the State Library. Ditto that for the walls of Parliament House, double it for one of the seats in the Southern Stand at the MCG. Because they pretty much all taste the same (although I’m pretty sure I detected hints of tomato sauce at the MCG, it was right after the Hawthorn v Collingwood game, I also found half a chicken burger which was a bonus because I hadn’t had any dinner).

Anyway, it seems the seven different types of bacteria poisoning I contracted were a total waste of time and ipecac because there’s a much cleaner, less crazy-bird-lady way to go about discovering the tastes of Melbourne: you just go to the Taste of Melbourne – which is what we’d apparently planned to do all along with Keg Bike, lots of cups, and our tongues kept firmly inside our mouths.

Just quietly, being at the Taste of Melbourne was more fun than licking warm plastic benches. We made a fort out of mineral water boxes which is just like making one out of cereal boxes when you’re a kid only now we’re grown-ups, so it was bigger and more awesome and after I explained to her that it was for work, Mum didn’t make me take it down. After we stopped pretending that we were all knights and that Keg Bike was a battering  ram that we could use to siege our neighbouring stalls, we realised that hydrating the masses with rainbow coloured mineral water delights was equally as rewarding as taking pretend prisoners to feed to not-real dragons. And far from being our enemies, our next door neighbours Longrain had some serious speakers for music making which meant we could wow the crowds with our killer dance moves and enviable-yet-accessible coolness. Which we did. A lot. Ask anyone.

But if you somehow missed us at Taste of Melbs (maybe you were confused too and spent the weekend licking the platform at Flinders Street Station?) never fear! Because us, our Keg Bike, our impenetrable cardboard fort and our trademark water-sprinkler moves are heading to Master Chef Live in Sydney on October 7^th.  And since we’re (ahem) the preferred mineral water partner of the event, you’d best come by to visit and more importantly, to check out what’s shaping up to be a very elaborate, highly choreographed multi-stage dance routine. Just don’t try to siege our fort or pillage our women because Keg Bike will feed you to a dragon faster than you can say, “but this water doesn’t taste anything like the Yarra.”

And dibbs on using the “oh, I thought this was Taste Of Master Chef” explanation when I’m found licking George Calombaris an hour into the event. Get your own excuse.

Everybody knows that “Red Heads,” “Gingers” or, to use the politically correct term, “Rangas,” aren’t the same as regular humans. They tend to be more afraid of sunlight than Edward Cullen but without the attractiveness and superhuman strength to back it up, their skin seems unnaturally determined to turn the same colour as their hair at every mildly embarrassing moment, and I’m not sure but I’m guessing that they’re less good at all the cool things like hopscotch and Spiderman Monopoly and regular Monopoly and cartwheels and blogging. Which is probably why they’re a dying breed and will be extinct in 100 years, just like dinosaurs or Louie the Mortine fly.

Still, having once been confused for a Red Head – which is weird mostly because my hair is not red - I can identify with the underdogs of the gene pool. Life must be tough knowing that the odds are always against you. Which is why we’ve created a salute to our disadvantaged brothers and sisters with a brand spanken new Organic Ginger Beer.

Although much more attractive and awesome than its human namesakes, like them, Ginger Beer’s had to fight for survival. Sooo many obstacles that it’s had to outwit, outplay and outlast (it probably wasn’t fair that we sent it out into the jungle on rice rations and kept offering it a spoonful of peanut butter and a hot-dog in exchange for immunity and a chance to become the ultimate Survivor, but as Ron Weasley or Ginger Spice will tell you, life’s not always fair). Anyway, just like the tormented career of Lindsay Lohan, Ginger Beer built us up with the piggy-tailed innocence of Parent Trap and then tore us down with its inability to get out of a taxi without flashing its private parts and its you’re-not-fooling-anyone blonde highlights. One day I’d be promised Ginger Beer within the fortnight, the next it was a mere phantom of a thing, a ghostly whisper echoing in a licked-clean peanut butter jar abandoned in the Amazon.

It reminds me of the time my brother told me that if I pulled my tooth out and left it under my pillow I’d get five bucks from the Tooth Fairy because the market for adult teeth is much more lucrative than the fledgling baby teeth one. Well, the Tooth Fairy never came and now I’m tired because I was only pretending to be asleep last night so that I could see her and I’m also a little concerned because I googled it and it seems that adult teeth don’t grow back like baby teeth do and my brother’s not taking my calls and he said I wasn’t allowed to tell Mum or the whole operation would be a bust, which if you ask me, it is anyway and I think I’ll stick to my guaranteed cash cow  (rainbow-end hunting) from now on.

Luckily, unlike my cheque from the Tooth Fairy, our Organic Ginger Beer really did arrive this morning! And even though the newly exposed nerve endings in my gums tingle in the hurty way every time I take a sip, I can’t get enough!! So get on board the ginger train! And whenever you take a swig of the coolest soft drink going round, spare a thought for our disadvantaged fire-haired brethren, and then thank your lucky stars that you’re not one.