Open Post: Hosted By The Man Who Drank A Cocktail That Had His Own Pickled Toe Floating In It
Ok, so my goal is to get through this story without making a single toe pun. Can it be done? Only time will tell. According to The New York Post, Nick Griffiths, a man who lost his toe to frostbite last year, had his deceased appendage pickled and served to him in a glass of whiskey. And he’s leaving his toe behind as a gift so that others may have know the pleasure of its tangy zip.
Astoundingly, people have been paying actual money to drink something called a Sourtoe Cocktail since 1973. Under the watchful eye of the “Toe Master”, patrons at the Downtown Hotel in Dawson in the Yukon province of Canada, can pay $5 for the pleasure of imbibing a cocktail where instead of ice cubes bumping up against your lips, it’s the pickled toe of a human being. No word if the drinkers are offered a breath mint after completing the challenge in which “drinkers must touch their lips to the toe to earn a certificate of completion”. But if they are offered a mint, it would have to be a Mentos. Men. Toes. Dammit! I knew I’d jam myself up eventually.
This is a thing over 90,000 people have done. And some of those 90,000 people are fucking monsters because the toe “frequently gets stolen”. And so when Nick saw a “toe wanted” poster, he knew it was his destiny to have his toe sucked by thousands of strangers.
The titular toe of the Sourtoe is so sought-after that it frequently gets stolen (and sometimes returned) — hence the bar’s need for Griffiths’ toe. He saw a “Toe Wanted” poster from the hotel shortly after losing his own to frostbite during the Yukon Arctic ultramarathon and mailed in the specimen.
CBC Canada adds that the bar had been looking for a new toe for a couple of years, so they were thrilled by Nick’s generous donation.
Griffiths’s toes were removed after he returned to the U.K. He then dropped two of them in the mail to Dawson, as he wanted to see them “recycled and reused.”
“They arrived on my desk, regular mail,” said Adam Gerle, general manager at the Downtown Hotel. “I don’t know how legal that was, but they arrived.
“We’ve been saving the big toe for him to do.”
Here’s Nick toesting (it’s too late to turn back now) to the good health of his remaining digits.
Congratulations to Former British Marine Nick Griffiths for doing the #SourtoeCocktail with his own Big Toe! Nick lost his toes to frostbite in the Yukon Arctic Ultra and traveled all the way from Manchester, England for the big event. #DawsonCity #Yukon #Badass pic.twitter.com/uwy7rpyTwd
— Sourtoe Cocktail (@SourtoeCocktail) September 24, 2019
I wonder if Nick will get a rubber prosthetic to replace the toe he lost. If he does, I know what he should name it. (He should name it Roberto.)
Pic: Downtown Hotel via Instagram