Speight’s is culture. It was the first beer I ever had. Being underage, it was acquired through messaging unemployed 25-year-olds on the Dunedin Sober Driver’s Facebook page, where I and two other borderline prepubescent teens climbed into a random’s clapped-out Subaru Impreza to pay $50 for a singular 12 box of full-creams. We then split the box huddled in the hedge of a local park whilst failing to get a singular bottle-cap trivia question right. A true act of patriotism in its own fucked up binge-drinking way, an experience that no other drink can bring – except for maybe Cody’s if you’re from Waikato.
Speight’s have served as fuel for generations before us, and to that we must pay homage. Is it as good as anything Emerson’s makes? No. Does it taste like what the Gregg’s factory smells like? Absolutely. But it’s the one drink that makes you think of Otago as home. It brings you back to when you got your first flat in second-year and put on the Highlanders game in your mouldy lounge, cheering on from the shitty grandstand that your flatmates put together with leftover crates. It reminds you of that time you witnessed a friend-of-a-friend get the three stars stick-and-poked onto his leg, or when you stayed at Pint Night till close when you had a presentation the next day. Speight’s is sinking a bottle to the stars when your flatmate answers the most out-the-gate trivia question, and it's the alcohol blanket you used when you couldn’t quite understand that your heat pump doesn’t cost your whole student loan to run.
Speight’s is dirty and a bit like bottling the Leith into a beer, but it’s charismatic. It echoed the walls of the Gardies (ask your parents), the House of Pain (ask your parents) and the Captain Cook (ask your parents); it painted the porcelain throne of your neighbour’s flat after getting stitched-up in rage cage. It’s genuine and it’s Otago. For Critic’s 80th anniversary the oldest living editor at the time said, “I hope and pray that when you and your gang will get together to celebrate the first century Speight’s will still be the best drink.” So for Critic’s 100th, put down the foreign lemon-flavoured RTD, reject the modernity of the mint solo and embrace tradition. Have a bottle of Speights and smoke a lung-dart – it’s what our forefathers would have wanted.
Chur (formally),
Gin Swigmore