British Adventurer Nick Griffiths sustained severe frostbite in three of his toes while mucking about in the Canadian Yukon a couple of months ago. He'd been competing in the Yukon Arctic Ultra race when exposure to the damp, extreme cold of Canada's far north did to him what it does. Despite the time he'd taken to convalesce from his injuries, Griffiths was told by doctors in England that they would have to amputate three of his toes to stave off infection. Griffiths asked to keep his dismembered digits and his surgeons were happy to comply. They gave Griffiths his three detached little piggies, preserved in liquid-filled bottles. 

The question of what to do with the toes was an easy one for Griffiths to answer. According to the CBC, the adventurer has offered to donate them to Dawson City's Sourdough Saloon to be served up in cocktails for punters with a taste for human feet.

As any Canadian will tell you (I'm pretty sure they include the fact on our citizenship test), the Downtown Hotel serves up a unique cocktail: The Sourtoe. The ingredients of a Sourtoe Cocktail are simple, but kind of hard to come by: a shot of whisky and a severed human toe. Once the drink has been downed, it's tradition that the toe be returned to the Sourdough Saloon's bartender to be reused. But that doesn't always happen. People have run off with one of the toes in the past and, in 2013, some tool decided to swallow it along with his booze. Read the rest

Munktiki's $20 Octopus mug comes in red or purple, and nicely complements their Bell-Buoy mug (sold out, but we can hope for a resupply!). (via Super Punch) Read the rest

In this unsourced video that hit Reddit's front page this morning, a man who appears to be Chinese funnels a handful of wrigglers (minnows? eels? loaches?) into a bottle of beer, tops it with a flaming shot of hooch (baiju?) that he's seasoned with a lungful of cigarette smoke, then impressively chugs it in a matter of seconds, all with an air of showmanship; it's a video that combines self-abuse, animal cruelty, dubious intoxicants, and implausible biological feats. Read the rest

Proposed Canadian legislation to legalise operating watercraft "propelled exclusively by means of muscular power" has been canceled, after the Canadian Safe Boating Council convinced the legislation's author, Liberal MP Colin Fraser, that "it would send the wrong message to the public to exclude drunk canoeing." Read the rest

Hollis Bulleit publicly accused her own family, makers of a popular brand of bourbon whiskey, of homophobia.

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Over the past year, I've bought a lot of extraordinary bottles of spirits -- a move from London to the wide-open spaces and warm climes of Burbank have afforded many more opportunities to entertain and thus to sample the output of the world's distilleries. Read the rest

Activated charcoal makes for some cool-looking chow, like the superblack soft-serve at LA's Little Damage, and you might think that since activated charcoal is given to people with acute poisoning, it's safe to eat. Read the rest

The Irish Pub Company offers Irish pub interiors in six styles: "Modern," "Brewery," "Shop," "Country," "Celtic" and "Victorian." Choose your package and they'll ship you a bar, as well as "flooring, decorative glass, mirrors, ceiling tiles, light fixtures, furniture, signage, and bric-a-brac." Read the rest

Mondo Tees has announced a line of Aliens xenomorph tiki mugs, ("in space, no one can hear you drink"), available for pre-order now with ship dates this summer (some glazes only available at Alamo Drafthouses). Read the rest

The Belgian Parliament has voted to continue its decades-long practice of supplying free booze to lawmakers, despite several incidents of unpleasant, drunken behavior, because the alternative is going back to having to drag elected officials out of the local bars when it's time to vote. Read the rest

Tall glass, cracked ice, 4 dashes Angostura bitters, crushed peel of one lime, fill with Holland gin: "It’s strong, it’s bitter—but so is English ale strong and bitter, in many cases." Read the rest

The Stormtrooper Decanter is on back-order, but you can pre-order one from the next batch for £22 -- it's based on Andrew Ainsworth's original movie helmet moulds from 1976, and will provide endless opportunities to point to lowball glasses and say things like "aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper drink?" (via Bonnie Burton) Read the rest

They're on sale at Trader Sam's at the Disneyland Hotel for $30, limit 2 per customer. (Excited about this, but Trader Sam's needed another reason for crazy, badly managed queues like it needed a hole in its draught beer pressure system). (Thanks, Cecil!) Read the rest

Within days of our move to Los Angeles last summer, John Edgar Park and family came over with a bottle of his homemade bitters. It's been a year of astounding cocktails, thanks to him. Read the rest

Kara Witham uses a scroll saw to expertly cut-out books so they can secretly hold a flask. From her website:

The first chapter of Secret Safe Books was written in 2009. Kara was working a day job as a gallery guard for the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. Born out of many idle moments in the galleries and a lifelong love of books, the idea for Secret Safe Books was born. After shifts at the museum, Kara would click around the web researching methods of hollowing out books. She started out with a simple X-Acto knife and a lot of patience. Later, Santa brought her a scroll saw to help speed things along.

Next chapter ~ From the very beginning Secret Safe Books was a huge success. Kara's day job was history in less than a year and after the plot was clear that crafting book safes would balance the books, John wrote off his day job to work full time at Secret Safe Books.

They sell for about $50 - $60, and the flask is included, making them a great gift.

I make these to keep booze literally undercover

Roald Dahl spent the last of his days in a special armchair that he modded to help him with back pain from a WWII injury; now, in honour of the Dinner at the Twits interactive theatre events, the craft 40FT Brewery has swabbed some yeast from Dahl's chair and cultured it to brew Mr. Twit's Odious Ale, which will be served at the event. Read the rest

Brew Cutlery raised over $20K on Kickstarter to make these handsome, heavy (150g) utensils with integrated bottle-openers in their handles; the backers who got the early sets are effusive in their praise of the look, materials (18/8 stainless steel) and craftsmanship (each piece is hand-finished). Not cheap, though: $50/set. Read the rest