When you're constantly hopping between different cultures (I host a television travel show), it's easy to put your foot in it. Recently, I rudely laughed at a friend when he told me that a bar in Canada's Yukon Territory served the most disgusting drink in the world.

You generally have to head east to savour the exotic fringes of world cuisine: live baby mice in China, boiled spiders in Cambodia, fertilised duck eggs in the Philippines. In Canada, you can buy beaver tails, but that's just the name for deep-fried sugared pastries. I had belittled my friend because the legendary Sour Toe Cocktail, as served in Yukon's Dawson City, could not possibly be real. After all, why would you drop a severed human toe into a beverage? Really, I just didn't think Canada had it in her.

Dawson City boomed as a major centre of the short-lived Klondike Gold Rush. Between 1896 and 1898, the population swelled to 40,000, and it was the largest city north of San Francisco. By 1902, the gold had dried up, along with dreams of fame and fortune. Dawson City quickly turned into a small outpost with sinking wooden storefronts; the population fell to 1,300.

In 1973, a local eccentric was thinking of a way to capitalise on the summer tourist traffic heading to the Top of the World Highway. Captain Dick, as he is known, found a severed toe in an old log cabin. Now, when the temperature plummets to -55C, men are known to do strange things, including, as Gold Rush poems suggest, set themselves on fire to avoid dying of cold.

A veteran inhabitant of the territory who has braved an entire winter there is known as a Yukon Sourdough. (They have a winter festival in the capital, Whitehorse.) Captain Dick dropped the toe into a glass of champagne, and called it the Sour Toe Cocktail. He started a club, crowning himself the Toe Captain. To join it, all you had to do was take a drink and let the toe touch your lips. Word spread. The legend was born.

Nearly four decades later, I walk into the Downtown Hotel, chilled to my bones. Captain Al, tonight's Toe Captain, is awaiting new customers at the bar. Behind the counter sits the eighth toe, preserved in a jar of salt. Over the years, toes have been stolen, lost and, in some cases, swallowed. The 8th toe is a sickeningly big digit, donated by an American who lost it in a lawnmower accident.

I pay $5 for a tumbler of Yukon Gold whiskey (the cocktail is available with any drink now, even non-alcoholic ones), and $5 to join the club. There's no doubting the authenticity of the digit. It's yellowed and pickled by the salt, with a broken nail. My stomach lurches. Captain Al launches into a well-rehearsed ritual: "Drink it fast, or drink it slow, but either way, your lips must touch this gnarly looking toe!"

I close my eyes, taste the whiskey, and indulge in this ceremony of cocktail cannibalism. Not too bad, perhaps a little too much toe-jam on the high notes.

Captain Al tells me the club has over 60,000 members. Anyone of drinking age can join, and since the Downtown Hotel is not responsible for what you put in your drink after you've bought it, the health authorities are powerless to do much about it. Tourists now visit Dawson City specifically to go toe-to-toe with this challenging libation, much as Captain Dick anticipated.

With my name logged in the book, I received a card confirming membership of the Sour Toe Cocktail Club – and then immediately emailed my friend to apologise for having dismissed his story.

• sourtoecocktailclub.com. Double rooms at the Downtown Hotel, Dawson City (+1 867 993 5346, downtownhotel.ca) cost from £72 a night

Robin Esrock (robinesrock.com) co-hosts Word Travels on the Travel Channel