This was my closest ever brush with foot and mouth - a shot of Yukon jack whisky with a shrivelled human toe in the bottom.

To join the Sourtoe Cocktail Club in the Downtown Hotel, Dawson City, Yukon, I had to let its gnarled blackened nail touch my lip, a tradition that started in the 1970s when a local discovered the frozen tootsie of a rum runner who'd had to amputate it in a log cabin when he got frostbite.

Occasionally toes are accidentally swallowed by visiting drunks - they re-emerge painfully a few days later but they aren't really toes you can use again (unless you're really flying), so a steady supply have been donated over the years including ones from diabetics and people who decide to use a lawnmower while wearing sandals. Last time I went they had a full donated set of five toes, all preserved in salt.

It's not as bad as it sounds and you do get to become a member of the Sourtoe Cocktail Club, the only club I've been a member of in my life.

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