A farm labourer has died after being filmed chugging a litre bottle of spirits in order to win a bet.
Footage shows how a customer at the bar in Santo Antonio do Rio Verde, Brazil, warns “If he chokes, he’ll die” as Antonio Candido Tavares necks the strong liquor.
After he finishes the bottle and leans back into his chair looking zonked, someone shouts: “He drank it. He won. Bring the beer crate.”
A witness told how the 42-year-old was promised two crates of beer if he managed to finish the whole bottle of cachaca on 16th July.
He told local media: “They bet two crates of beer. He chugged a litre of pinga but couldn’t handle it.”
Pinga is another name for cachaca – a liquor distilled from fermented sugarcane juice that contains between 38 and 54 per cent alcohol by volume.
According to the police, the bet winner was later found slumped on the pavement outside the bar.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The bartender told the police that the victim had been drinking with pals since the early morning.
When he had left – the bar owner recalled – he lay down on the pavement and failed to get up again.
The case has been registered as a natural death. Therefore, according to Police Chief David Felicio, it will not be investigated for the time being.
It is not clear if Antonio died from alcohol poisoning or choked on his own vomit.
