This little piggy became part of Canada’s grossest cocktail tradition.
THREE FINGERS . . . AND A TOE
Looking for a test of bravery with your beverage? Then head to the rugged Yukon in the extreme northwest—legendary land of trappers and gold miners. In Dawson City, the Sourdough Lounge in the Downtown Hotel serves the infamous Sourtoe Cocktail. The drink itself is nothing special—often just a shot of whisky. Actually, it can be any drink you like—champagne, scotch, beer, or even a Coke. What makes this cocktail a Sourtoe is not the drink but the garnish. Instead of an olive, onion, or lemon peel, it comes with an actual human toe bobbing in it. The toes come from anonymous donations from sympathetic amputees. The blackened toes have been dehydrated and preserved—packed in a Mason jar full of salt.
The history of the drink goes back to the 1920s during prohibition. As the story goes, the Mounties were hot on the trail of brothers Otto and Louie Liken. They had been hauling illegal rum from Dawson into Alaska. After Otto got his foot wet, his toe went dead from frostbite. The brothers knew gangrene would spread into the foot if they did not take drastic action. In the middle of nowhere and without access to doctors, Louie offered to be the surgeon. Otto uncorked a bottle of his favorite booze and anaesthetized himself. Then Louie performed the delicate operation, blasting his brother’s toe off with a shotgun.
AN UNUSUAL MEMEN-TOE
The brothers kept the toe as a souvenir in a jar of alcohol. Flash forward to 1973. When riverboat Captain Dick Stevenson found the preserved digit, he realized he may have a tourist attraction on his hands. He brought the toe to the bar in the Eldorado Hotel, and he challenged all takers to have a drink with the pickled toe floating in it. If they could do it, they’d be a real Yukoner and receive a certificate saying they were officially in the Sourtoe Club. The only rule: Your lips have to touch the toe.
Soused vacationers and locals were captivated by the challenge. For seven years, the standard Sourtoe Cocktail was champagne in a beer glass, topped with Otto’s nasty digit.
Taxonomically speaking: Ogopogo is in the genus Zeuglodon of primitive, serpentine whales.
In July 1980, after hundreds of Sourtoes had been downed, tragedy struck. While downing his thirteenth drink of the night, a local miner fell over backwards and accidentally swallowed the toe.
When Captain Dick put out the call for new toes, he received a donation from a woman who had hers lopped off because of a corn. (That must have been one bad corn.) A local trapper also gave his frostbit toe for the cause.
A REAL NAIL BITER
In 1993, Captain Dick handed over his one remaining pickled toe to a friend. That toe found its way to the Downtown Hotel, which has built a thriving line of business surrounding the somewhat macabre tradition. The hotel has given out more than 35,000 certificates to people who have conquered the cocktail. Hotel owners say that every now and then a customer will still swallow a toe. On one festive evening, a firefighter from Ontario chewed a toe up until it was almost unrecognizable and then handed it back.
A Sourtoe Cocktail is now a $5 pour of any drink of your choice with the toe plopped in it. And there is one rule to get a certificate and become a Sourtoer: “You can drink it fast, or drink it slow, but the lips have gotta touch the toe.”
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NO GHOSTS FOUND, BUT NEW ONES CREATED
“Emergency crews attend to a woman who fell three storeys at a University of Toronto building. Police arrived at around 2 a.m. in response to reports of a man and woman trying to jump from one level of the building to another. The man was able to make the jump, but the structure the woman was standing on gave way, police said. She fell into a courtyard in the centre of the building. The woman was rushed to St. Michael’s Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The two were hunting for ghosts in the 134-year-old building, which they believed was haunted, according to police.”
—CBC News
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