Clare Wright’s award-winning research challenges the myth that the Australian pub is a male domain, revealing the enduring and dynamic presence of female publicans behind the bar. Wright takes the reader on a pub crawl through this history: from Sarah Bird, the 27-year-old convict who was Australia’s first female licensee, to Big Poll the Grog Seller, the miners’ darling on the goldfields, to Cheryl Barassi and Dawn Fraser in recent years.

Handsomely illustrated and weaving oral history interviews, archival sources, folk songs, bush ballads and other popular literature throughout the narrative, this groundbreaking book exposes the remarkable visibility and dominance of women in Australian hotel-keeping culture.