British ultramarathon runner donates frostbitten toes to be served in cocktail
Nick Griffiths sent two digits in post to Yukon hotel renowned for “Sourtoe” cocktail
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Your support makes all the difference.A British ultramarathon runner has donated three toes he lost to frostbite to a Canadian hotel to be served in a cocktail.
Nick Griffiths, 46, was forced to drop out of the Yukon Arctic race in February last year after suffering from severe frostbite during the 300-mile race.
While receiving emergency treatment in a Canadian hospital, a nurse told Mr Griffiths about the “Sourtoe” cocktail which is served at the Downtown Hotel in Dawson City, Yukon.
It is a shot of whiskey with a mummified human toe dropped inside, like an orange peel in an Old-Fashioned.
After hearing about the cocktail, Mr Griffiths asked the doctors wo amputated three of his toes to let him keep them so he could send them to the hotel. His toes arrived by post at the hotel’s bar last week.
People have been visiting the Downtown Hotel to drink the Sourtoe Cocktail since 1973, when a local boat operator found a severed toe in a cabin and thought turning it into a drinking challenge might help to draw in tourists.
Since then, Terry Lee, the bar's official “Toe Master,” estimates that more than 100,000 people have become members of the Sourtoe Cocktail Club.
“You can drink it fast. You can drink it slow. But your lips must touch the gnarly toe,” Mr Lee said.
The toe is mummified and stored in a jar of salt in the warmth of the furnace room for preservation. There are currently two toes in stock, rotated out until they decay.
That is why Griffiths's donation is so special, Mr Lee said. It can be challenging to stock the bar with new toes, which come only every several years.
“We're really happy to get this toe,” Mr Lee said. “We've been without a big toe for a long time.”
Mr Griffiths's donation is uncommon for several reasons, Mr Lee said.
They are usually willed to the bar by anonymous deceased people. Sometimes they are donated by living people who chop off a toe on accident with a lawn mower or chain-saw. But rarely, Mr Lee said, does a living person donate an amputated toe after voluntarily trudging 50 miles through the arctic wilderness.
Mr Griffiths, a former Royal Marines Commando, has completed the Ironman Triathlon and rowed a boat across the Atlantic Ocean with a small crew of friends.
“I like a challenge and I like an adventure," he said. " But there's people out there who are way more adventurous and tougher than I am.
“I'm just a normal bloke who likes to have a go at things and experience life.”
During the 300-mile Yukon arctic ultramarathon, the racers are entirely self-sufficient and pull their own food, sleeping bags and water on a tiny sled.
The trail is marked. But last year, Mr Griffiths said, the conditions got so bad that the organisers had to rescue almost everybody, halting the event for one day.
By nightfall the temperature plummeted and became unbearable. Mr Griffiths said he knew he could not stop walking to lie down and sleep.
But eventually, he and his partner were too exhausted to go on. They huddled in the snow for three hours in the middle of the night, from midnight to 3 am, shivering and massaging their numb muscles to keep the blood flowing.
By the next evening, when event staff transported Mr Griffiths to the nearest hospital, his toes were purple.
The surgeon thought he was going to lose them all, if not his entire foot. Mr Griffiths remained in the hospital for treatment for several days before flying back home to Manchester, where a surgeon prepared him for amputation. There, he told the doctor about the Sourtoe Cocktail.
“He thought it was quite amusing,” Griffiths said. “He said, 'Look, they're your toes. You can have them if you want.' When I came back from surgery, next to me were three little jars with my toes in it.”
For months, the hotel kept trying to fly him out to deliver them in person, but plans kept being thwarted by Mr Griffiths's long-term medical treatment.
Finally, Mr Griffiths turned to the postal service. “I didn't really think you could send body parts through the post,” he said.
Five weeks later, the toes arrived intact, floating in the medical-grade alcohol.
Mr Lee said the next step will be soaking the toes in salt to dry them out, as part of the six-week mummification process. Then, they will be ready to serve.
Mr Griffiths said he still plans to make the trip to Dawson City “so I can drink my own toe.” “My wife and kids, they think I'm a bit mad,” he added.
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