Toe-tally Outrageous: Customer Steals Mummified Toe Served in Specialty Cocktail in Canada

A hotel bar in northern Canada said a customer has stolen its most crucial ingredient: a mummified human toe used in the bar’s signature cocktail.

Canada’s CBC News reports that Terry Lee, “Toe Captain” of the Downtown Hotel in Yukon, was “furious” when he discovered the severed digit had been lifted, because “toes are very hard to come by.”

As its name suggests, the bar’s traditional Sourtoe cocktail reportedly features a disembodied toe floating in a whisky shot. As a rule, the drinker must bring the toe to their lips.

According hotel manager Geri Coulbourne, the appendage was donated by a man who had to remove it by surgery, then cured in salt for six months before being put in service.

“This was our new toe, and it was a really good one. We just started using it this weekend,” she said. Lee, however, noted that the bar has a few extra toes at the ready.

The bar has set a fine of about $1,500 for theft, but the one stolen last week wasn’t the first lost to a customer, reports CBC. In 2013, a customer downed an entire cocktail — toe inclusive — and had to fork over a fine of about $375.

The hotel said the suspected thief, believed to be from Quebec, had boasted about wanting to steal the toe — before coaxing the bartender into serving him the cocktail, and doing just that. The hotel intends to fine him and press charges “unless the Toe is returned safe,” reports CBC.

[CBC]

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