Top 10 animal-related drinks stories

Having brought you our top 12 stories of animals behaving badly last year, we felt it was time to take a look back at 2017 to bring you our 10 favourite animal-related drinks stories of the year.

From how sex-mad Spanish slugs can be stopped in their tracks with a saucer of beer, and a California vintner’s close encounter with a great white, to a heartwarming story of a silverback gorilla-turned-brewer.

Read on for our round up of the weird and wonderful ways animals made the headlines on db this year.

Wishing you, and the animals in your life, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Liquor-loving rats

In May police in the eastern Indian state of Bihar have reported that rats had consumed thousands of litres of impounded alcohol.

The state of Bihar, in eastern India, imposed a complete ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol last year, but this didn’t stop the rats from running riot.

During a meeting of police inspectors in the Patna district, senior superintendent Manu Maharaaj was informed that rats had consumed over half of the seized booze, while other districts also battled the law-breaking, liquor-loving rats.

According to police, the rodents gnawed off the bottle caps then helped themselves to the contents.

Wine for Cats

In March British cat lovers went wild over the launch of Pawsecco – a herbal ‘wine’ for cats.

Created by pet drinks specialists Woof & Brew, the non-alcoholic, non-carbonated ‘wine’ was created with the advice of veterinary experts from natural herbs.

Available in both ‘Pet-House White’ and ‘Pet-House Rosé’, the still wine is an infusion of elderflower, nettle, ginseng and lime flower.

Pawsecco can be poured over food or served as a drink, and, according to its makers, offers “an elaborate, stylish treat” for your four-legged friends.

Pawsecco was launched at this year’s Crufts and was tasted live on Channel 4 with presenter Clare Balding.

Vintner’s great (white) escape

In June a Californian winery owner got more than he bargained for while out paddling, finding himself sharing the sea with a great white shark.

Dale Pearson, co-owner of Pearson Brothers Winery in southern California, was at his local beach when he caught site of the shark in the water and filmed it.

Initially thinking it was hammerhead shark that might have been caught in a net, he and a friend waded into the shallow water to get a closer look.

It quickly became clear, however, that the shark was not caught on a line nor was it a hammerhead, but its rather more fearsome cousin, a great white.

The 15-foot shark was thrashing around in 3ft of water. In-between bouts of activity Pearson managed to approach to with touching distance of the animal, being sure to stay behind it all the time.

We bought a zoo

In June a Kent pub became the first in the UK to be awarded a zoo licence, allowing it present its collection of exotic animals to the public from its back garden.

Landlord and animal lover Andy Cowell moved into the Fenn Bell with his wife Kelly in 2014 with his collection of exotic animals in tow, which include four breeds of monkey, genets (an African wild cat), meerkats, lemurs, birds of prey, racoons and South American coatis.

After a long battle, this summer the pub was finally granted a full zoo licence by Medway Council.

Posting on the pub’s Facebook page, Cowell said: “Our plan was to create a home for us and our animals and be able to share it. I am pleased to say that today we have done it. It’s difficult to put into words what this means to us.”

Pub for pooches

This summer a barking idea got the green light when London’s first pub aimed at dogs opened at Chelsea Farmers Market.

The Pawsecco Bar popped up at pet boutique The Pet Pavilion and served dog-friendly drinks including Pawsecco’ white and rosé and Bottom Sniffer, a non-alcoholic beer beer made from dandelion and burdock, nettle, flax seeds and chicken flavouring.

Hounds could also get their chops around dog friendly ice cream alongside gourmet canapés like grass-fed lamb, bone broth and organic chicken.

Meanwhile, last month Aldi started selling Bottom Sniffer in the run-up to Christmas.

Sold in 330ml bottles for £2.67, Bottom Sniffer costs more than double that of Aldi’s beers and ciders by the bottle.

Bourbon mad opossum

A drunken opossum went overboard at Thanksgiving this year after it was found the morning after at a Cash’s liquor store in Florida beside an empty bottle of Bourbon.

The merry marsupial was taken in by the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge after a call from the Fort Walton Beach Police Department on 24 November.

The cheeky scamp sneaked into the store on the morning after Thanksgiving and broke a bottle of Bourbon, before helping itself to the contents.

Michelle Pettis, a wildlife health technician at the Refuge, told NWF Daily News: “A worker there found the opossum up on a shelf next to a cracked open bottle of liquor with nothing in it. We looked over her and she definitely wasn’t fully acting normal”.

The owner of the shop, Cash Moore, added: “She came in from the outside and was up in the rafters, and when she came through she knocked a bottle of liquor off the shelf. When she got down on the floor she drank the whole damn bottle”.

Vodka saves cat

In July a cat that was poisoned by antifreeze, later renamed ‘Tipsy’ after its ordeal, was saved by Australian vets who happened to have a bottle of vodka lying around.

The black tomcat used up one of its nine lives when it was brought into the RSPCA animal hospital in Wacol in Queensland with acute renal failure.

The cat was rushed to the vets after being found near a tyre store suffering from the effects of antifreeze consumption. She had less than an hour to live.

Fortunately for the feline, one of the nurses happened to have a bottle of vodka lying around and vet Dylan Gerard quickly administered it in a diluted form via in IV drip.

The enzyme in the body that breaks down the antifreeze also metabolises alcohol.

Silverback turns brewer

In heartwarming animal news, this July Patrick, a 394-pound silverback gorilla, helped with the making of a limited edition beer at Riverbanks Zoo in South Carolina.

Patrick – the largest and hairiest ape at the Columbia zoo – was taking part in its annual ‘Brew at the Zoo’ tradition where the animals help select the ingredients for their home brew.

The fastidious primate chose a well-balanced blend of caramel malt, cherries, pilsen malt and wheat for the blend.

Dubbed Patrick’s Pick, the beer was made in collaboration with local brewer, the Legal Remedy Brewing Company in Rock Hill.

Billed as “Columbia’s coolest suds sippin’ safari”, this year’s annual Brew at the Zoo event took place at Riverbanks on 4 August, where visitors could sample over 100 local and imported craft beers while ambling around the 170-acre site.

Sex mad Spanish slugs

This April scientists and slug experts have advised that the giant Spanish slug offensive sweeping through the UK at the time could be halted with a saucer of home brew beer.

The six-inch Arion vulgaris, believed to have travelled to the UK on salad leaves, can eat up to 20 slug pellets before it dies.

First spotted in the UK in 2010, the sex-mad slugs produce double the quantity of slime and twice as many eggs as their British counterparts.

They also have a cannibalistic tendency and feed on a wide range of green plants, decayed organic matter and animal carcasses.

It was feared that if the new slugs mated with their native cousins they could create ‘super-slugs’ capable of withstanding both hot and cold weather.

Dr Leslie Noble of the University of Aberdeen advised that a saucer of beer was the best way to eradicate the pests.

The slugs have a particular penchant for the beverage, causing them to investigate and then drown in the liquid.

Rampaging peacock

Our favourite animal-related drinks story took place in June, when a rogue peacock destroyed US$500 worth of wine and spirits after brazenly strutting into a liquor store in Los Angeles and refusing to leave.

The flightless fowl found its way through the door of the Royal Oaks Liquor Store in Arcadia, California, perhaps on the hunt for a bottle of ‘Peccorino’.

However, it wasn’t long before the avian adventurer was confronted by an animal control officer, intent on booting out the beaked intruder.

Much like a Benny Hill sketch, the officer began the tricky task of chasing the pesky peacock around the store with a net.

However, this fine-feathered peafowl was having none of it, leading the officer on a 90-minute goose chase around the store, trashing much of its stock in the process, including some expensive Champagne.

“He’s got expensive taste. I’m like, ‘You break, you buy, dude’. But clearly he did not. He got away with it,” said 21-year-old Rani Ghanem, whose parents run the store.