Raccoon Crashes Through the Ceiling and Starts Tasting Whisky

When you work in a liquor store, you might expect an early customer, a forgotten order, or a few empty shelves after a busy night. What you don’t expect is a dazed raccoon lying next to the toilet after battling its way through your spirits collection…

Yet that’s exactly what happened in Ashland, a small town in the U.S. state of Virginia.

The staff member who opened the store on Saturday morning was surprised to find a soaked ceiling tile on the floor, followed by a serious trail of chaos. The culprit? A raccoon that had crashed down through the ceiling and landed right among the bottles of liquor.

According to the local animal rescue, which later shared the incident on Facebook, multiple bottles were shattered. And as if that weren’t enough, the animal seemed to have helped itself to the contents. The rescue described the raccoon as “clearly inebriated” when they found it.

The staff member eventually discovered the animal completely knocked out next to a toilet bowl, as if it had sought a quiet spot to recover from its nocturnal escapades. Or was it so drunk on whisky that it needed to throw up?

Either way, it sounds like a scene from a slapstick comedy, except this really happened.

The raccoon was picked up by a local rescue organization. After a few hours of sleep (or sobering up?), it was safely released back into the wild.

In the photos, you can see a trail of whisky bottles on the floor, including a Glenfiddich.

The obvious question is how this could have happened. Scent may have played a part. Many animals are drawn to sweet or powerful aromas, and a store full of whiskies and spirits is, in that sense, one big invitation.

The mess has since been cleaned up, the ceiling tile replaced, and the raccoon is back in the wild. Still, this story lingers.

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