A Canadian bar known for serving a severed, mummified human toe in its signature drink reported that their toe was stolen Saturday.
The Sourdough Saloon, located in a hotel in Dawson City in the Yukon, is “furious” that the main ingredient in their “Sourtoe Cocktail” — a drink which features a mummified toe submerged in a shot of whiskey that the patron must swallow until toe touches the drinker’s lips — has been stolen.
“We are furious,” said the hotel’s “Toe Captain,” Terry Lee, in a statement to the CBC. “Toes are very hard to come by.”
The Alaska Dispatch News reports that Lee’s job as the “Toe Captain” is to preserve the human toes during the day with rock salt and serve the infamous toe cocktails by night.
He added that the toes are donated by anonymous donors either through wills or after an amputation.
Lee said that Saturday night, one man ordered the signature cocktail shortly after midnight outside the usual hours in which the cocktail is served. He added that, when the bartender looked away, the patron left the bar with the toe.
Officers with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are investigating the incident, but no arrests have been made in the case yet nor have police found the toe, a police spokeswoman said.
Lee said that the saloon thinks they have identified the suspect as a man with a French accent from Quebec who talked about stealing the toe before he received his drink.
“We have a name. We have two witnesses,” Lee said. “This guy is in deep trouble.”
Staff added that the man in question left behind a certificate presented to him for drinking the cocktail.
The bar has an established fine of $2,500 for anyone who steals or swallows the toe. The fine used to be $500, but the bar increased the fine after one patron swallowed the toe in 2013 and slapped $500 on the table.
The toe is worth more than the fine; the National Post reports that the toe has an estimated value of $80,000.
The hotel posted a “Missing Toe” flyer on its Facebook page Tuesday in the hopes that the toe would be returned, offering a reward for anyone who finds it.
Lee says he remembers two times when the toe was stolen in the 1990s, but the toe was returned each time.
Still, the bar has one backup toe they can serve until they find the stolen toe or get new donations.
“We have one other toe that we can serve,” Lee said. “The others are too small, they’d be a choking hazard.”