Posted: March 27th, 2008 - 4:25pm by Doug Powell

Bayou Bob found that sticking a rattlesnake inside a bottle of vodka and marketing the concoction as an ''ancient Asian elixir" made a lot of money.

But Bayou Bob Popplewell doesn't have a liquor license.

So Bayou Bob was arrested Monday after the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission obtained arrest warrants on misdemeanor charges of selling alcohol without a license and possessing alcohol with intent to sell.

Popplewell said he will fight the charges and that his intent is not to sell an alcoholic beverage but a healing tonic. He said he has customers of Asian descent who believe the concoction has medicinal properties.

But alcohol commission agent Scott Jones pointed out that investigators confiscated 429 bottles of snake vodka and one bottle of snake tequila. At $23 a bottle, that's almost $10,000 worth of reptilian booze.

Camilla Hsieh, an Asian studies lecturer at the University of Texas said there is some merit to Popplewell's claim that snake vodka could be seen as a tonic. There's a street nicknamed ''Snake Alley'' in Taipei, Taiwan, where street vendors put the gall bladder of a freshly killed snake into a glass of strong liquor. The drink, sold to the highest bidder, is supposed to improve eyesight and sexual performance
.
''It's like the ancient version of Viagra,'' Hsieh said.

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