WORLD’S WEIRDEST HANGOVER CURES
If you’re going to overindulge over the holidays, know that the morning after is never pretty.
Here are some traditional remedies that may or may not work…try them at your own risk! And remember, the best cure of all is not to drink – or to drink responsibly if you do.
• The Ancient Romans had their own system for getting rid of a hangover: Pliny the Elder recommended deepfrying a canary and scarfing it down. There’s debate about whether the bird was beheaded and skinned, or eaten whole, but everyone seems to agree that those crunchy bones were some of the best bites.
• The morning after a bash, Namibians drink buffalo milk. Guess what it doesn’t have in it? Buffalo milk. It’s just clotted cream (from cows), dark rum, spiced rum, cream liqueur, and whole cream. It sounds like drinking a cup is how you’d get a hangover in the first place. In addition to a belly full of booze and dairy, Buffalo Milk adds a sugar crash to the blend of bad feelings.
• Drinkers in Puerto Rico have apparently figured out how to prevent a hangover.
Before an evening of indulgence, they rub a slice of lemon (or lime) into the armpit of their drinking arm. Supposedly it prevents dehydration.
• Sicily, and just three words for you. Dried. Bull. Penis. In the past, Sicilians with hangovers would gnaw on a good ol’ dried bull penis. The assumption was that it restores your virility. Or perhaps your brain just eliminates the hangover as quickly as possible to stop your body from eating anymore!
• Not to be outdone by their canary-eating contemporaries, the ancient Greeks treated their hangovers with a breakfast of sheep lungs and two owl eggs.
• According to Irish legend, the best way to cure a hangover is to get buried up to your neck in wet river sand. Ireland is not a warm country, so the wet river sand should be rather chilly. This could have the same effect as a cold shower.
It’ll wake you up and get the blood pumping, but there’s not much medical evidence that it cures a headache and nausea.
• Turkey’s hangover cure: tripe soup. The innards are boiled with garlic, onion, and sometimes cream.
This is also a popular remedy in Mexico and Romania—but honestly, it makes a headache sound not so bad.
• Mongolia – pickled sheep eyeballs in tomato juice. Jokingly called a ‘Mongolian Mary’, this blend of tomato juice and pickled sheep eyeballs is an old hangover remedy in Outer Mongolia.
The eyeballs are said to be high in antioxidants, vitamin C and retinal – although, we don’t know if that’s enough to convince us to drink it.
Other remedies including chugging back a big glass of milk, eating a greasy breakfast or juicy burger; tomato juice minus the vodka, with loads of ice, and going for a swim.