Looking for something different for you next holiday?

The Atlas Obscura is a collaborative project with the goal of cataloguing all of the singular, eccentric, bizarre, fantastical, and strange out-of-the-way places that get left out of traditional travel guidebooks and are ignored by the average tourist. If you’re looking for miniature cities, glass flowers, books bound in human skin, gigantic flaming holes in the ground, phallological museums, bone churches, balancing pagodas, or homes built entirely out of paper, the Atlas Obscura is where you’ll find them. Atlas Obscura.

Still I don’t expect anyone in their right minds rushing to Downtown Hotel, Dawson City, Yukon, Canada to try their Sourtoe Cocktail.

Established in 1973, the Sourtoe Cocktail has become a Dawson City tradition. The original rules were that the toe must be placed in a beer glass full of champagne, and that the toe must touch the drinker’s lips during the consumption of the alcohol before he or she can claim to be a true Sourtoer. The rules have changed in the past twenty-seven years. The Sourtoe can be had with any drink now (even ones that aren’t alcoholic), but one rule remains the same. The drinker’s lips must touch the toe. “You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow– But the lips have gotta touch the toe.”

The Sourtoes are actual human toes that have been dehydrated and preserved in salt. Swallowing one is not suggested. Sourtoe Cocktail Club.

There’s no mention of sourtoe in Dawson City’s Wikipedia entry – to be honest it’s probably and elaborate hoax and I’ve no intention of travelling to Dawson to check.

But then again you never know – here’s a YouTube Video

Fake or real? You’ll have to visit.

Hat Tip: Very Short List