Forget martini olives and tequila worms. How ’bout amputated frost-bitten toes in your drink? I didn’t believe this one myself until I had it corroborated by several Alaskans, Canadians and a couple of well-traveled friends of mine.
A few years ago, I was researching the Alaskan wilderness as a travel destination for an adventure-centric company I work for… and I stumbled across this: In Dawson City, high in the Yukon and just east of the Alaskan border, there’s a bar in the Downtown Hotel that serves a drink called the “Sour Toe Cocktail,”
which contains an actual alcohol-preserved human toe!
For a modest $10, you can order the cocktail and be inducted in the proud club of “Sour Toers” if you consume your entire drink and let the dead black toe (with nail still attached) touch your lips at the last swig. Easy breezy, right?
As legend has it, the Sour Toe Cocktail tradition started back in 1973 when the frost-bitten lost toe of a miner was dropped into someone’s cocktail as a joke. Once the shrieks and laughter subsided, someone dared someone else to drink it – and a tradition was born.
Originally, the Sour Toe Cocktail was simply strong local beer or champagne (for the ladies, I assume), but today it can be any drink of your choosing – including non-alcoholic…but the basic rule stands: You have to plop the toe in the glass and plant a big juicy wet-one on it at the end of your drink.
Over time, various locals have contributed their own amputated toes to the bar. And the bartenders will often tell you about the person whose dead toe you’re kissing.
As for my well-traveled friend who helped corroborate the story? He’s actually a card-carrying member of the “Sour Toe Club.” As a nature photographer who specializes in Alaska imagery, he’s up in that neck of the woods almost every summer, and he has visited Dawson’s Downtown Hotel more than once.
“So how was your Sour Toe Cocktail?” I asked him.
“I dunno,” he said. “My toe was pretty old and shriveled. It felt hard, like a peach pit, when it touched my lip. I tried not to look at it or think about it too much.”
If you think I’m kidding about all this, check the links below and enjoy!
Words by Trevor Pitchford
Hey Eric! I wanted to let you know that I recently put together a website for cocktail lovers. The idea is "put in the bottles you have in your bar, and find out the cocktails you can mix". I'd love to hear your thoughts about it! Any feedback you may have would be super-useful - I'd love to make the site super-useful for the community.
The site is http://www.cocktailbuilder.com
Cheers!
-Alex
Posted by: Alex | June 26, 2007 at 01:27 PM
Wow, kind of gives a whole new meaning to a DIRTY Martini...don't you think?
Posted by: MissHapp | June 21, 2007 at 11:29 AM