Mold

Has anybody had this problem with their beers? Penis' Found Floating in Bottle Was Mold, Cops Say Copyright 2001 Scripps Howard News Service An object found in a fruit drink last week is not a human penis, as previously believed, but mold or bacteria, Commerce City, Colo., police now say. "We worked off the best information we had," said Elaine Rowe, police spokeswoman. "We didn't have any clue that it could be anything else. It's very strange. I've never seen anything like this in law enforcement." Last Thursday machinist Juan Sanchez-Marchez, 41, found what appeared to be a 3-inch section of a human penis in his 20-ounce Ora Potency Fruit Punch after he had downed two-thirds of the drink. He turned it over to Commerce City police, who sent it to the Adams County (Colo.) Coroner's Office, which determined it was part of a human penis. The police issued a press release Friday, and the drink was taken off grocery-store shelves. Rowe said Wednesday the pathologist from the coroner's office didn't do a tissue sample but only an external examination of the object before identifying it as a penis. Rowe said she could see how the pathologist could come to that conclusion. "If you saw it, you would have believed it," she said. The determination that it was mold or bacteria was made Wednesday. In the meantime, when the Denver distributor of the drink, Vancol, went through the bottles from the recall, workers made a disturbing discovery. "They found a second bottle with a round, cylindrical object inside," said Rowe. Vancol notified the Food and Drug Administration Tuesday, which in turn, notified Commerce City police. Investigators took the second bottle and its contents and sent it to the coroner's office for examination. "The assumption is that it is the same thing that was in the first bottle, so it was sent off to the FDA for a more thorough test," Rowe said. Samples of the object found in the first bottle were also sent to the FDA for additional analysis. -- Join our newsletter devoted to Chicago Beer History now! Also receive the latest info on the release of The History of Beer and Brewing in Chicago, Volume II. Coming soon! For a preview of this book, go to: http://www.topica.com/lists/ChicagoBeerHistory/