Inside the Birdcage marquees: 55,000 dead ants and space champagne

THERE are three things inside this year’s Birdcage marquees that are so bizarre you can’t help but ask yourself: Why?

WOULD you eat a lamington covered in dead ants?

I did, and many more people will over the next few days inside the Birdcage at Flemington racecourse.

The unique dessert is one of the most bizarre items on offer inside the exclusive Birdcage area where the rich and famous mingle on Derby and Melbourne Cup day.

Today the various marquees inside opened their doors to the media and let me tell you, there’s some random sh*t.

Let’s start with the lamingtons shall we? About 55,000 black ants were crushed to cover the 1200 ice cream lamingtons that will be on offer inside the Lexus Design Pavilion. May they rest in peace.

Lamingtons with black ants in them, anyone?

The divine table settings in the Lexus marquee. Picture: Alex Coppel

The lamingtons are the brainchild of Attica’s Ben Shewry who unfortunately wasn’t there today to explain why he decided to commit ant genocide. (I should add that the lamingtons were bloody delightful.)

If you think that’s strange, let me tell you about the champagne inside the Mumm marquee.

Inside they’ve got one of only 30 bottles in existence of Mumm Grand Cordon Stellar, which is the only champagne that’s been designed to be consumed in zero gravity conditions — aka space.

According to Mumm, this hi-tech bottle “uses the champagne’s gas to expel the liquid into a ring-shaped frame, where it is concentrated into a droplet of bubbles. It can then be passed to someone and released into the air, where it floats until gathered up in a specially designed glass”.

Mumm hasn’t really explained why it has decided to focus on the almost non-existent space market, but good on the company for doing something different.

The DJ inside the Mumm marquee. Picture: Alex Coppel

And last but not least, there was a piece of furniture inside one of the marquees that caught my eye.

There’s an actual bed in the Pace marquee that guests can sit down on to regain their composure after a long day on the champers.

But it’s not your average bed.

It features a Vispring Shetland mattress worth $60,000. Vispring mattresses are made entirely by hand and were the mattresses on the Titanic (I’m certain they weren’t to blame for the whole sinking thing though) and are the ones used by the royals. Apparently David and Victoria Beckham have one too — talk about posh!

For an in-depth look at these three unique items inside the Birdcage, check out the video at the top of this page.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the park to collect ants to sell to Ben Shewry.

Well aren’t they just having a ball. Picture: Alex Coppel