Captain Dick Stevenson, a true Yukon original who "invented" one of the territory's oddest claims to fame — a drink with a severed human toe in it — has died.
According to his daughter, Dixie Stevenson, he died in Whitehorse early Thursday morning at age 89.
"I'm pretty sure I'm the only daughter in history that has to, following my dad's will, make sure that his toes are removed and dried and make it up to Dawson City," Dixie said on Thursday.
"As a matter of fact, I'm just on my way downtown. I have to buy containers and pickling salt."
Captain Dick's world-famous invention, the "Sourtoe Cocktail," is nearly 50 years old and continues to draw brave and thirsty crowds to Dawson City's Downtown Hotel.
Order one up and you'll get a shot of whiskey with a gnarled old human toe bobbing in the glass. Let the toe touch your lips and you're in the Sourtoe club — with a certificate to prove it.
"I thought maybe only 10 or 12 people would ever do it," Captain Dick Stevenson recalled in a CBC interview in 2017.
To date, more than 90,000 people have kissed the toe.
ok-cleek
Man I had a dreadful flight
So you can order a three finger shot with a toe floating in it?
I would have to do some considerable pre-drinking drinking to stiffen my resolve to try that drink.
Is there just one pickled human toe, which is then recycled to the next shot glass?
And if not, who is the toe supplier, 90,000 kissed and counting?
Sweeney Todd?
Jeffrey Dahmer ?
A bartender where I consume toe-less liquor sez her mother went to junior high school with Dahmer.
I wonder if his mother packed his lunches.
Hey, ugh, do you wonder if the old coot, Captain Dick, died of ptomaine poisoning?
Well, he put his best foot forward, sounds like.