In Mossel Bay, South Africa, a gin maker is infusing their alcoholic drinks with something that’s pretty crappy — elephant dung. The creators of Indlovu Gin thought of the idea after learning that elephants eat a well balanced meal of fruits and flowers, of which they only digest less than a third. The botanical digestive stew results in a flavor that’s described as “lovely, wooded, almost spicy, earthy,” and one that changes with the seasons. The business owners (who are married and both scientists) received their first batch of elephant poop via mail. Today, they collect the dung themselves using their bare hands. About five sizeable bags of elephant feces are used for a batch of 3,000 to 4,000 bottles of gin. The droppings are dried, crumbled, then washed to remove dirt and sand (yeah, that’s what everyone’s worried about). What’s left is the remains of fruits, flowers, and bark. The gin sells for about $32 a bottle.
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale …
Three cows swept off the coast of North Carolina during Hurricane Dorian in September somehow managed to survive, offering something of a bovine-centered reboot of “Gilligan’s Island.” The three castaways were evidently part of a herd of about 20 cows that roamed private land on Cedar Island, just off the North Carolina coast, according to the Charlotte Observer. When Dorian struck the area in early September, they and the other cows, as well as 28 wild horses, were swept out to sea; the animals were all presumed dead. But the three bovines somehow swam about five miles and landed on Cape Lookout National Seashore Park in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, where they were recently discovered contentedly grazing on grass. “It’s a tremendous story of how they made it,” park spokesman B.G. Horvat told The New York Times. “If the cows could talk, imagine the story they can tell you of enduring that rush of water.”
Tea with extra lemon
A McDonald’s in Hilton Head, South Carolina, is in hot water after a man who ordered sweet tea at one of the fast food giant’s locations received a little extra herbal helping in his drink — three small bags of marijuana. The Island Packet reported that the South Carolina man went to McDonald’s and ordered a sweet tea with light ice and extra lemon. The man, who discovered the bags in his cup after finishing the tea, said he believes “extra lemon” was a secret code for weed. He described himself as being “high as a kite,” and had never had marijuana up to that point and so didn’t recognize the taste. Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office says an investigation is ongoing.
Middle aged Twinkie
A private school in Maine is celebrating 43 years that an unwrapped Twinkie has been on display ever since a science teacher left it there. The Twinkie is a mainstay at George Stevens Academy in Blue Hill, Maine, where now-retired teacher Roger Bennati left the sugary treat in 1976 as part of a lesson on food preservatives. The Twinkie remains the same size and shape as a fresh one, but it’s color has faded to gray and now has rough texture. The Twinkie was in Bennatti’s classroom until 2004 when he retired, at that point, it was passed along to the school’s dean of students who was one of the students in his classroom during the original Twinkie lesson.
Three judges walk into a bar…
… and end up brawling outside of White Castle at 3 in the morning. The judges were suspended last week by the Indiana Supreme Court after a violent altercation that took place after the judges failed to get into a strip club and apparently failed to get a late-night meal as well back in May. The night before a judicial conference, three Indiana judges went on a bender and ended up at White Castle after finding the strip club closed, according to a legal opinion by the Indiana Supreme Court. While standing outside the restaurant, two men passing in a vehicle gave the judges the bird, and after trading insults, the two parties began physically fighting. The altercation escalated when one of the men pulled a gun and shot one judge in the stomach and another judge in the chest. The two men later recovered in the hospital and one judge was charged with misdemeanor battery. Moral of the story: don’t be late to the strip club.
Like a bank robbery, but in reverse
In Maryland, a 78-year-old man was robbed and assaulted in his own home last Friday after making a large withdrawal earlier in the day. The suspect? The 19-year-old bank teller who helped the old man. After reviewing footage from the old man’s doorbell camera that captured the bank teller, police arrested him while at work. How much money the old man withdrew was not made public, but they are charging the bank teller with home invasion, robbery, burglary, and assault. When the bank teller broke into the home, another person was able to intervene during the home invasion and the teller fled before the police arrived. Following the arrest, the county’s sheriff told media outlets, “In 34 years in law enforcement, I can’t think of another case where it’s almost like a reverse bank robbery.”
Have yourself a snort
A group of drug dealers in Italy attempted to hide a stash of cocaine from police by burying the bags of white powder in a forest in Tuscany. But the four men are now out about $22,000 after some four-legged sleuths — wild boars — dug up and destroyed the packages, scattering them around the woods, law enforcement authorities said. Police evidently learned about the episode by listening in on a telephone conversation between the alleged dealers, in which they were heard complaining about the boars in the Valdichiana Valley. Four men — an Italian and three Albanians — have since been detained, the UK Metro newspaper reported; the four suspects allegedly traded 4.4 lbs of coke every month in nightclubs in the city of Arezzo. As for the wild boars, it’s not known how they coped with the comedown.
London’s newest museum
Camden, the borough of London that contains the British Museum and the Charles Dickens Museum, has a new attraction — the world’s first vagina museum. Established as a response to the Icelandic Phallological Museum in Reykjavik — a penis museum in common parlance — the Vagina Museum opened this past weekend with with an exhibition called “Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How To Fight Them.” “Just under 50% of the world’s population has one. Most of us came into the world through one. Yet vaginas and the rest of the gynaecological anatomy are still a taboo subject,” a poster in the exhibition reads. The show runs through February. When it is done, curators want to focus on the history of menstruation and also current social and political issues.
A straight up failure
In a great example of events deserving to fail actually doing so, a straight pride event in Dallas, Texas, attracted exactly two people. The organizer failed to show up as well. The event was originally scheduled to include discussion topics such as sex trafficking, legalized prostitution, abortion, and drag queen story hours. Whether the two people who showed up — both from Boston — wound up speaking about those topics, isn’t clear. Much more likely they were drowned out by the significantly larger counter-protest.
