The search for the ultimate hangover cure
One writer’s search for the elusive hangover cure took him to new heights ... literally
According to folklore, chimney sweeps in Victorian London used to sell soot to holiday revellers as a hangover prophylaxis. So, one Christmas Day, before the guests arrived, Shaughnessy BishopStall swallowed a shot of olive oil and chased it with a mug of warm eggnog and fireplace charcoal. By midnight, he had also guzzled six glasses of wine, five flutes of champagne, three rum and eggnogs and two whiskies.
The charcoal was supposed to soak up the toxins. Instead, “I wake the next morning like a partridge stapled to a pear tree. ... All I can do is hang there,” feeling shaky and nauseous, Bishop- Stall writes in his latest book, Hungover: The Morning After and One Man’s Quest for the Cure.
Arriving in time for one of the booziest holiday periods of the year, the book chronicles humanity’s complicated relationship with the bottle and the strange things people have done in the hope of curing what, at the turn of the 20th century, was colloquially known as crapulence or having the jim-jams.
“In Puerto Rico today, it is supposedly still customary to treat a hangover by squeezing the wedge of a lime in one’s armpit,” writes Bishop- Stall, who, as part of his own “applied research,” once jumped off the tallest free-standing observation tower in the U.S. tethered to a cable. Eventually, the Toronto-based writer pieces together what could be the ultimate hangover antidote (it involves an amino acid supplement). Postmedia spoke with Bishop- Stall about his quest for the cure.
Q Your book notes that, “among countless hungover writers, so very few have written actual hangover books.” Why did you want to do this?
A It really started to seem like everything in my life had led up to this book, even though
I had no idea of it at the time. Almost everything else I have written, there is so much to do with hangovers in them, and I had never realized that. My first non-fiction book (2004’s Down to This: Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown) was about a year I lived in a tent city on the edge of Toronto. That is a place where I probably witnessed more elaborate and desperate hangovers than anywhere. The whole experience was like one giant hangover.
Q What is the worst hangover you have ever experienced?
A I think the one I describe in the desert outside of Tucson would be one of my worst because of it being compounded by having drunk vinegar on top of all the alcohol. That would have completely torn my stomach apart. And add to that the heat stroke from the desert. That may be the closest I’ve got to death by hangover.
Q What were some of the worst hangover remedies you tested?
A The charcoal in the eggnog. It didn’t taste that bad, but I combined that with olive oil. Olive oil before drinking is as prevalent and ancient a remedy as charcoal. There are still a lot of places in Europe where it is customary to take a swig of olive oil before you start drinking. I thought, ‘Well, I gotta try them both.’ That one ended up really bad. And I think the film of the olive oil that had been holding all the alcohol at bay, when it gave out, all of the alcohol entered my system at the exact same moment — just kind of invaded the belly. That might have been what happened to me. Although the actual taking of the olive oil and the charcoal was fine, the next day I was so horribly sick.
Then there is just stuff that’s gross to try. I didn’t mind haggis, but boiled cabbage — the smell is very specific. Although eating the boiled cabbage itself is effective, to actually boil it can make you twice as sick. You sort of want to find a way to have the cabbage already boiled before you’re hungover.
Q What worked?
In Puerto Rico today, it is supposedly still customary to treat a hangover by squeezing the wedge of a lime in one’s armpit.
A The jump off the Stratosphere Tower (in Las Vegas) and the time we all jumped into this run-off from a glacial lake — two examples of such immense adrenalin surges.
I was really surprised by accidentally finding that adrenalin worked, and then following up with the scientific reasons for why that might be true. There’s this fast sobering phenomenon that scientists talk about, when someone who is intoxicated suddenly gets a massive surge of adrenalin or epinephrine. It almost reboots your system. I think adrenalin can definitely get rid of a hangover for a short period of time, but then maybe you could be faced with an adrenalin crash.
I thought the experience of being buried alive (in hay) atop this Austrian mountain worked. I felt good when I came out of it, and I felt like hell when I went into it. So that was kinda cool.
Q We won’t give away the formula for the hangover cure you came up with, but why do you say it all comes down to timing ?
A People really want a cure once they’re hungover, and that’s not very easy. However, if they had done something four hours before, they would have been fine. It has to be taken after drinking, but before sleep, in that really dodgy period of time, because once you fall asleep the whole mechanism of the hangover begins.