These elephants will never forget their wild village experience.

Villagers in East India were again surprised when they found an unusual sight on Wednesday. Two dozen elephants fell asleep on the ground near a broken jug.

The residents of the Salipada village in Keonjhar district, located in the state of Odisha, India assumed that the herd of elephants had come across the villagers’ large pots full of fermented brew and had decided to indulge. The villagers use the jars to ferment a local alcoholic brew, traditional in India, called ‘mahua,’ made from madhuca longifolia tree flowers.

They had left the pots of alcohol, which is quite popular in the region, to ferment in the forest for a few days and are now counting their losses after they found 24 elephants sleeping in a drunken stupor next to the pots. Mahua, in its pure state, contains a whopping 45% alcohol content level.

One of the locals said that they had gone to find their alcoholic treasure at 6 am that morning and found the pots broken and the contents missing. They found the elephants sleeping and figured they had taken the fermented alcohol and gotten drunk.

According to the local man, the alcohol was unprocessed and, therefore, more potent. The villagers tried to wake the elephants up from their sleep but failed. They then informed the country’s forest department, which sent their officials to wake the animals up. The loud noise from the officials’ drums woke the drunken elephants up.

The forest rangers said the elephants got up and walked back into the jungle.

The Wildlife SOS Chief Executive told reporters that mahua is one of the Indian wild animals’ favorite drinks. He said the animals love alcoholic brew because of its pure, potent, and tasty nature.

It is not the first-time elephants in India have indulged in the mahua. There have been several incidents of them getting drunk off of mahua, and sometimes they cause havoc in their search for the next high. 

This is 100% “proof” that they never forget. 

The Wildlife Chief said that when elephants smell the brew, they go into a frenzy and search for it until they find it. They will break down walls and kitchens to get their fill of it, and when they are done, they stagger back home and sometimes knock down a tree or two, or even a house on the way.

Earlier this year, in April, their search for mahua turned deadly after five elephants left five people dead who had been brewing mahua in the Jaisingh Nagar Forest range.

It is a serious and dangerous matter and the authorities are trying to figure out how to deal with incidents such as these and other conflicts between animals and humans.

Indian officials had warned villagers to stay away from the forest where the herd was spotted moving and stop brewing mahua, as the elephants had a powerful sense of smell and would find it.

The five villagers who were killed ignored the warning, and the elephants killed Lallu Kanwar, his wife Lalita Kanwar, and Devi Singh, her sister after they found the trio asleep next to the pots of mahua.

A day before, the elephants came across Motilal Basor and his wife Muliya Bai as they were collecting liquor in the Amjhor forest and killed the couple. Over the years, there have been several other stories of elephants attacking people because of alcohol.