Fortitude Valley welcomes US sailors as they invade for Wild Turkey and women
Knocking back Wild Turkey and sweet-talking women were high on the agenda of US sailors who stormed Fortitude Valley at the weekend. They’re expected back tonight to belt out a few tunes.
QLD News
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KNOCKING back Wild Turkey and sweet-talking women were high on the agenda of the battalion of well-behaved US sailors who stormed Fortitude Valley at the weekend.
Legendary venue Rics Bar and Irish pub Finn McCool’s in the Brunswick Mall were just two of the more popular destinations for the crew of the nuclear powered supercarrier USS Ronald Reagan.
The 333-metre longship, one of the largest and most powerful military vessels in the world, docked in Brisbane last Friday.
Finn McCool’s sales manager Tyrone Hammond said they specifically stocked-up on Wild Turkey ahead of the arrival of the ship, given the sailors’ passion for American Whiskey.
“We did have quite a lot of sailors in over the weekend and, we’ve found, we are one of the more popular bars because they love their Irish venues,” Mr Hammond said.
“We had about 150 on each night and we definitely went through quite a bit of Wild Turkey. We’ve had sailors coming through in the last few years so we knew to stock up.
“They were definitely very popular with the girls.”
Mr Hammond said sales were well up over the weekend and there wasn’t any trouble.
The sailors even returned Sunday to watch the UFC.
“When we do have large groups of guys come it be a concern but when they’re US sailors they are well behaved and we never have any problems with them,” he said.
“They were pretty much in here over the whole weekend. There were about 30 or 40 so in here on Sunday watch the UFC which started at 11am.”
Rics Bar’s owner Les Pullos said all of his venues benefited from the USS Ronald Reagan being in town.
Mr Pullos also owns the Marquee and the Royal George.
He said if every patron behaved as well as the sailors then there would be never be any trouble in the Valley.
“They were all impeccably behaved and enjoyed the place,” Mr Pullos said.
Mr Pullos said he’s expecting a few of the sailors to return on Monday night to try their hand at karaoke.
“No doubt they will be there in numbers, probably doing a couple of old Bruce Springsteen numbers.”
Some of the sailors also visited Love and Rockets gentleman’s club in the Valley where they were also on their best behaviour, said a spokeswoman.
The sailors happily posed up for photos at the Pig ‘N’ Whistle in the Queen St Mall on Monday as they let off steam ahead of military games exercise.
The USS Ronald Reagan is an 18-year-old ship that cost $4.5b to build.
It costs $1m a day to fully operate and its crew consists of more than 4,000 personnel.
The ship arrived in Brisbane in preparation for launch of the Talisman Sabre 2019 — Australia’s largest joint-military training exercise.
Some 20 military ships are expected to visit Brisbane from at least five foreign nations to join Talisman Sabre.
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