Around 8 years ago while I was living with my girlfriend Helen, I decided to brew some vodka. Someone had bought me a “brew your own vokda” kit and I had never used it. I checked around the house and had everything I needed, or so I thought.

I checked the instructions and the first step was to clean out the container with a sterilizing fluid. This was a problem as I didn’t have any and didn’t really want to go to the shops to get it. So, I just scrubbed the container harder. Yea, that’ll do the trick.

The vodka finally brewed and the charcoal (used to filter it) settled to the bottom. I had added a shit load of sugar to try and increase the alcohol level, plus I had not added the “vodka flavoring” as I didn’t really like vodka, hence the reason I had never used the kit. The vodka flavoring, i figured, could be added later if we didn’t like the taste.

Myself and John consumed one and a half bottles. These were not really bottles, they were 15 liter glass brewing containers with a bubble system at the top so that no air could get in.

I totally forgot about the last container. I had set it upstairs for the charcoal to settle so I could get more out of it before cleaning the bottle and throwing out the sediment as I had done in the first bottle.

A month went by before my girlfriend one day said “there’s something in that bottle upstairs and I’m not touching it”.

Curious and excited, John and myself ventured upstairs and were stunned by what we saw. At first I was sure that someone had stuffed a glove into the bottle. Bare in mind that this bottle had a negative CO2 atmosphere with a high alcohol content and a negative pressure.

I picked up the large glass bottle and rolled it over. This monster of a thing loomed at us from the darkness of the charcoal filled water. We both jumped back shouting “what the fuck”.

This thing looked alien. On the top was a light smooth looking layer that looked like a shammy that you use to dry you car with after washing it. But the underside was a darker orange colour, ridged with bumps and looked very tough. As we moved it around we found that the upper layer was very soft and the bumpy bottom was very tough.

I had never seen anything like it in my whole like. What the fuck was this thing? I contacted the British fungal association who replied very quickly confirming that I had created an entirely new fungi. Whoop Whoop! However I was becoming concerned as a few days had passed and my girlfriend, John and myself had all come down with a cold. I wondered if the bumps on the fungus were spores. The fungus was way too big to get out of the bottle neck without breaking it up, so I did the only manly thing to do. I sealed the bottle, put it in the attic and pretended it didn’t exist!

I was interested to hear from the British fungal association representative that fungi has been documented as growing in alcohol and fuel pipes. While rare, these extremophiles have been found almost everywhere including oil pipelines.

As you can see from the images I made a particular point of showing the fungi next to a ruler so that the exact dimensions could be seen. That’s a whole other story entirely. I found it funny that the only ruler I could find as an adult was one of my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rulers!

Call me a wimp, I will clean up anything, but would you want to get this thing out of a bottle?