Toe used in Yukon bar’s famous shot is pinched
Individual made off with digit used in the Sourtoe Cocktail
A bar patron turned into a suspect last weekend after swiping a dismembered human toe from a renowned establishment in the Yukon — and though alcohol was involved, what prompted the theft is anyone’s guess.
The “Sourtoe Cocktail” has been a signature, exclusive drink of the Downtown Hotel in Dawson City for decades. And the bizarre experience has drawn in travellers with audacious bents from all around the world — the severed toe must kiss the lips of the drinker when they slug the shot back.
“We’ve been advertising that (the toes are) really hard to come by these days because hospitals are reluctant to release them,” said Adam Gerle, general manager of the hotel. “We get them from people who have had a medical procedure, like if someone has frostbite.”
The suspect entered the establishment around midnight, “cracking jokes about stealing the toe to his buddies,” Gerle said.
“He was there with his girlfriend and they paid the bar tab, so we have his Visa slip.”
A hotel news release said the suspect is from Quebec and failed to cover his tracks on the evening of June 17: police have a name because he left his drink certificate at the hotel bar, a souvenir doled out to customers who drain the shots. The Dawson City RCMP said the investigation is active and that they have yet to identify the suspect.
The toes are an invaluable asset from a business standpoint, said Geri Coulbourne, the hotel’s manager. More than 70,000 people have tried the drink.
“Every night, all summer, between 9 and 11 p.m. we have lineups out the door coming in from all over.”
This makes justice a high priority for the hotel, which has no qualms about laying charges. “It’s a crime,” said Coulbourne. The drink has been considered a Dawson City must-do since the mid-’70s. As legend has it, a Dawson City rum-runner en route to the Alaskan border during the1930s prohibition era froze his big toe after stepping off his dogsled into an icy overflow.
His brother chopped off the frozen toe with an axe and preserved it in a jar of alcohol, in an attempt to prevent gangrene.
It was discovered years later in a cabin, and to commemorate the find, the Sourtoe Cocktail Club was born.