How To Make Vodka Al La Rattlesnake
Bayou Bob Popplewell has been wrangling dangerous snakes and raising turtles for over 25 years at his Brazos River Rattlesnake Ranch in Santo, Texas.
Bayou Bob Popplewell has been wrangling dangerous snakes and raising turtles for over 25 years at his Brazos River Rattlesnake Ranch in Santo, Texas.
Bob Popplewell holds a Western diamondback rattlesnake at his Texas ranch.
A turtle feeding frenzy at a pond used for commercial aqua farming at a West Texas reptile ranch.
A turtle feeding frenzy at a pond used for commercial aqua farming at a West Texas reptile ranch.
Bob not only takes care of his reptiles, but has horses, cows and just about every other farm animal imaginable at his Texas ranch.
Bob not only takes care of his reptiles, but has horses, cows and just about every other farm animal imaginable at his Texas ranch.
Bayou Bob — as Bob Popplewell calls himself — is gripping a real Western diamondback with his bare hands.
Although the snake is rattling and acting ticked off, Popplewell seems unfazed.
"I'm Bayou Bob from the great state of Texas, and I own a very unique business," he says by way of an introduction. "It's a rattlesnake and turtle ranch — a reptile ranch."
Popplewell is one of the people NPR met on a road trip known as "Take Me To Your Leader." The trip is an attempt to get away from the hype surrounding the political conventions in Denver and St. Paul, Minn. — and to talk to people from Chicago to Phoenix about whom they see as their leaders.
In addition to the snakes at his Brazos River Rattlesnake Ranch, Popplewell also owns ponds with hundreds of turtles that he breeds. As he throws dog food into the water, the turtles start to swim toward the food like an approaching army.
He often sells these baby turtles to China, where he says the demand for the animals as pets is greater than it is in the United States. But Popplewell says being a reptile breeder also makes animal rights and wildlife groups angry. He argues that he is finding a use for animals that ranchers want off their properties.
"All I've done is take vermin in America and line it up as a delicacy overseas," he says. "Just like the opposite occurs, there's things that we think are a delicacy and someone else doesn't want."
Popplewell views his role, in part, as harnessing nature to stay competitive in the global economy — much like his hero, T. Boone Pickens, the Texas energy giant who is now pushing for wind energy.
"We have to go with every alternative energy, just like the turtles and the snakes," he says. "They're a renewable resource. Lord knows, the sun and the wind are renewable resources."
But even grand philosophies have not kept Popplewell from being above the law. He recently got in trouble for selling bottles of vodka, without a liquor license, that contained dead baby rattlesnakes.
"Technically, I didn't have a license," he explains. "But I didn't think I needed one to sell a novelty gift item with preservative called vodka. The label we put on it says, 'Not for human consumption.' It's a novelty gift."
He mentions that some Asian cultures use this snake concoction for energy that keeps you going all night. And whatever is in his bottles, Popplewell says that he gets a kick out of the letters supporters have sent. Some wrote songs.
"There's one out called 'The Ballad of Bayou Bob.' The other's called the 'Whiskey Snake Blues.' It actually should be a hit, but it ends with run Bob, run," he says.
Produced by Thomas Pierce
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