Builders savour drink with a bit of body to it

HUNGARIAN builders who drank their way to the bottom of a huge barrel of rum while renovating a house got a nasty surprise - when a pickled corpse tumbled out of the empty cask.

According to a police magazine website, the men, who were working in Szeged, in the south of Hungary, tried to move the barrel after they had drained it, only to find it was surprisingly heavy and were shocked when the body of a naked man fell out.

The website reported that the man's widow had shipped the corpse back from Jamaica in the barrel of rum 20 years ago in order to avoid the cost and paperwork of an official return.

According to the online magazine www.zsaru.hu, the building workers said the rum in the 300-litre barrel had a "special taste" so they even decanted a few bottles of the liquor to take home with them.

The wife has since died and her late husband has been buried in a proper grave.