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All the United States Indiana Fortville Martini-Drinking Pink Elephant
AO Edited

Martini-Drinking Pink Elephant

The bespectacled, cocktail-sipping pachyderm is a strange but fitting liquor store mascot.

Fortville, Indiana

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How many pink elephants wearing thick black-framed glasses sipping a martini have you seen?   howardfeingold / Atlas Obscura User
The Martini-Drinking Pink Elephant in front of Elite Beverages   Map Data © 2017 Google
The Martini-Drinking Pink Elephant from down the street   Map Data © 2017 Google
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Seeing a pink elephant is commonly associated with being inebriated, making this bespectacled cocktail-sipping pachyderm a fitting, albeit still extremely strange liquor store mascot.

Outside Elite Beverages in Fortville, Indiana, the giant pink elephant sits on an aging wooden cart, wearing black-framed glasses slipped down the bridge of its nose, with its trunk wrapped around the stem of a martini glass. 

At 12 feet tall and 19 feet long, the elephant has been headquartered in front of the barn-like liquor store since the 1980s. Its glasses and the olive in its martini have occasionally been stolen, but townsfolk also like to add things, particularly around the holidays. The elephant has been bedecked in Christmas, Pilgrim, leprechaun, and Uncle Sam garb depending on the time of year. It has also been known to attend local parades and festivals.

To top it off, at a nearby restaurant and ice cream parlor called Indulge, the elephant has been honored with an ice cream concoction called the Pink Elephant featuring strawberry ice cream, soda, whipped cream, and rock candy, all served in a martini glass.

Update as of April 2021: The inebriated elephant has returned to his post in front of the new location.

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Published

July 12, 2017

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Sources
  • http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMEXGF_Fortville_Indiana_Martini_Drinking_Pink_Elephant
  • http://theartofsimple.net/travelapp/
  • http://littleindiana.com/2013/11/indulge-fortville-indiana/
  • http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/461
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortville,_Indiana
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_pink_elephants
  • http://www.roadarch.com/critters/ele.html
  • https://books.google.com/books?id=he1H22CfdoMC&pg=PA130&lpg=PA130&dq=pink+elephant+fortville&source=bl&ots=As-QiGykIQ&sig=0SCko6d9GdXMDpgMMG_7dQT5Qmc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjz17q7n__UAhXMFz4KHa6xCZs4ChDoAQhKMAc#v=onepage&q=pink%20elephant%20fortville&f=false
  • http://fox59.com/2015/03/13/your-town-friday-heads-to-fortville/
  • http://www.townepost.com/indiana/geist/elite-beverages-father-and-son-build-more-than-a-business/
  • http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/2019/03/01/toast_of_the_town_pink_elephant_set_to_rejoin_its_familiar_spot_in_fortville/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Related Tags

Elephants Sculptures Alcohol Beer Wine
Martini-Drinking Pink Elephant
308 W Broadway St
Fortville, Indiana
United States
39.929869, -85.850327
Get Directions

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