Cocktail bar reunited with stolen severed toe

An appeal issued by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for the return of a dried up human toe, stolen from a bar that uses it to garnish its Sourtoe cocktail, has been successful, with the severed digit mailed back to its rightful owner by a remorseful thief.

The stolen toe, now returned to its rightful owner

The Downtown Hotel in Dawson City, Yukon, famously uses a pickled human toe as the gruesome garnish for its Sourtoe Cocktail – a tradition that dates back to the 1920s.

Those brave enough to have dropped the toe into their drinks and then downed it are inducted into the “Sourtoe cocktail Club” – which surprisingly has more than 100,000 members. The only rule: “You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow, but your lips must touch the toe.”

Actually swallowing the toe is a criminal offence, which one man tested in 2013 when he swallowed the severed digit, landing himself with a CA$500 fine.

Unsurprisingly, severed toes are hard to come by, with one of the toes used previously donated to the bar following a lawnmower accident. So you can imagine the bar’s anger when its its most recent acquisition was stolen.

This particular toe was more favoured than most by the bar, as it had been a relatively ‘fresh’ donation, given to the bar by a man who had to have it surgically removed, and was a hammer toe, meaning it was particularly large and curled down, which meant it presented less of a choking risk…

Its theft last week prompted a nationwide hunt for the shrivelled piggie, with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police even getting involved, helping the bar to launch an appeal for its safe return.

Luckily for the bar, the appeal proved successful, with the sheepish thief returning the toe by post with a note apologising for the theft.

While the bar is once again in possession of a toe and able to keep the bizarre tradition of the Sourtoe tradition alive, the incident has prompted the official tourism department for Yukon to launch the ‘Make a Toenation’ campaign, urging those to sign up to one day donate their toe to the bar.

The tourism body is inviting individuals willing to part with their toes post-mortem to upload a picture of their attached digit to social media under the hashtag #MakeAToenation. More than 70 images of toes have already been uploaded, with the owner of the chosen digit in line to win a holiday for two. Although it will, likely, be some time before the bar finds itself in possession of said toe, the campaign should provide it with a healthy supply of backup toes in the future.

The grisly origins of the Sourtoe Cocktail are said to date back to the 1920s. Rum runners Otto and Louie Linken has been smuggling booze into Alaska during a blizzard when Linken stepped off his dogsled into some water. They didn’t stop to dry off the foot, and by the end of their journey, Louie’s big toe was frozen solid. His brother hacked it off with an axe and, oddly, decided to preserve it in a jar of Champagne. Captain Dick Stevenson found that jar while cleaning out their cabin in 1973 and began the Sourtoe tradition.

The appeal issued for the dried up toe