Svedka Trees Sprout in Grant Park From Buried Lolla Alcohol

By Ari Loundy

Photo credit: Aaron McDavis

CHICAGO, IL - Over a month after Lollapalooza graced Grant Park with 4 days of live music and excessive rowdiness, the area is coming alive again with some new life: alcohol trees.

Teenagers, in an effort to avoid bag checks and expensive alcohol stands, often bury bottles of alcohol in the park, like squirrels burying acorns for winter. And like squirrels, the tripping teens also often don’t find everything they’ve buried. The leftover alcohol is now taking root and beginning to sprout through the ground. The sprouting trees, mostly consisting of Svedka, Jaeger, Fireball, and an assortment of variants of White Claw, are beginning to spring up around the park.

The city has plans for removal, but this has been controversial.

“They can’t stay,” said Charity Steward, a representative for the Chicago Parks Department. “They ruin the landscape of the park, not to mention the bottles of alcohol that will grow when the trees are fully mature.”

Other complaints include drunk wildlife, reduced liquor store profits, and the inability to regulate their harvest after 10 PM.

Ecologists and recent college graduates want it to stay. “These trees are not very common, and should be preserved,” said Ayden Daniels, a recent Ohio State graduate. “Alcohol trees of this variety only exist in a few other places, like Manchester, TN where Bonnaroo is held, Austin TX, and a few trailer parks in northern Florida. Rare species like these need to be preserved, not destroyed.”

"Alcohol growing on trees? That’s lit, fam.” added Florence Harper, famed Harvard ecologist.

Of specific concern is a sapling Malört tree springing up near the Petrillo Music Shell, which is the first of its kind ever seen in the wild. The original Malort bottle, probably planted as a joke by an over-enthusiastic suburbanite, was never recovered during the festival for obvious reasons and now is well on its way to being a full-fledged Malort tree. “The tree may not look all that nice, smell very good, or bring joy to anyone, but it needs to be preserved all the same.”

Alcohol trees begin to grow fruit after a year but can take up to six years to reach full maturity. Liquor trees initially sprout travel-sized bottles, which grow until naturally falling off at around a full liter-size, though most are harvested by the time they’re about as large as a fifth. Beer and hard seltzer trees grow clusters of six fruits that bind together with natural plastic rings.

As the trees break ground, the urgency to remove them has grown. Luckily, it looks like the city is close to reaching an agreement with activists. The trees will be removed from Grant Park and relocated to Big Rock Candy Mountain, Oregon.