Age-old Hangover Remedies for the Morning After

Since the invention of alcoholic beverages, hangovers have become a universal curse that every culture has to deal with. From “hair of the dog,” to raw egg sucking, to the South American ceviche, both ancient and modern men and women have had to deal with “the Morning After.”

Pliny the Elder was the most famous compiler of hangover remedies in ancient times. To date, you can’t find any ancient story on the effects of overconsumption where Pliny has not been mentioned. One of his suggestions was wearing an amethyst necklace when drinking (amethyst is a Greek word meaning “not being drunk”).

Another was wearing a necklace of flat leaf parsley while retiring after a heavy drinking session. I already tried it and can report that it doesn’t work! Another possibility he suggested was lightly boiled owl’s eggs for breakfast. But where can you find owl’s eggs to lightly boil nowadays? If the eggs didn’t bring the desired relief, he suggested a “snack” of eels stewed in red wine.

Early Jewish belief, as well as later apocryphal Christian stories, claimed that the “Tree of Knowledge” in Paradise wasn’t an apple tree as medieval painters would have us believe, but a grapevine with the forbidden fruit of grapes. Actually, viticulture, the cultivation of grapevines started a few years after the Great Flood more than 10,000 years ago. So mankind has been trying to cure the hangover for a very, very long time!

Greeks and Greek-influenced cultures around the Mediterranean basin had Dionysus or its Roman counterpart Bacchus as the God of Wine. All Hellenized cultures sacrificed to Dionysus, from the Hellenic supermen of the Iliad, to Alexander the Great and his warriors, who conquered the “then known world” all the way to Eastern India.

Antiphanes, a respected ancient Greek historian, wrote that a good hangover remedy is:

Take the hair, it is written,
Of the dog by which you’re bitten
Work off one wine for its brother

In other words, the remedy, “Hair of the Dog,” has been with us for more than 2,500 years.

Medieval “healers” developed all kinds of strange concoctions hoping to cure hangovers. Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum, a “medical” compendium, suggests combining wine with ashes of scorpions or wolf’s liver steeped in what we would call medicinal alcohol. (Good luck putting that one together.)

And, of course, the “laying of hands” by a bishop was presented as extremely effective.

The Vikings, known for their love of spirits made from different fruits and grains, such as apples, pears, peaches, rye, wheat (and after the New World was “discovered” – corn), swore by the following remedy: moss cultivated in a human skull. They would dry the moss, powder it, and snort it. (I also don’t recommend trying this one.)

When I lived in Greece, a teacup instead of a demitasse of very strong Greek coffee without sugar – known as “polla vari ke ohi,” which means “very heavy without” – was considered the perfect remedy. If the hangover was not too intense, it kind of shortened the misery.

An old Zulu hangover remedy is pickled sheep’s eyes in juice of tomato. Okay…

Traveling through Munich more than 60 years ago, I was told that the best way to kill a hangover is to down an aspirin with a glass of rainwater. I do NOT recommend trying that, as acetylsalicylic acid, the aspirin’s ingredient, will negatively affect your liver when mixed with a large amount of alcohol.

A modern remedy suggested by a friend while I was visiting Finland in the 1980s was a “Panacea” of mixing stale beer laced with angostura bitters, adding canned anchovies and raw mashed garlic, then downing it in one long gulp! I tried this horrible concoction once … Ugghh!

A far more pleasant suggestion from another Scandinavian friend was to sweat out an upcoming hangover in a sauna. I tried it after an Ålborg Aquavit session, and it seemed to work. Skol to you!

When I lived in London in the early 1960s, Milk Thistle capsules were considered a great recovery aid from multiple pints of Bitter Ale.

In China, one of the most popular hangover cures is Chicken Congee, a porridge made with rice and Chicken stock. Another is Sour Plum Soup that helps to replace lost salt and potassium due to dehydration caused by the alcohol.

Bao He Wan, an age-old Chinese herbal formula popular in Southeast China and Hong Kong as an herbal tea, is thought to help relieve hangovers, headaches, and boost your Chi.

A very popular herbal remedy with a very long history is tea from leaves of Hovenia dulcis – the Japanese raisin tree. It was first brewed at Cathay’s Imperial Court as a hangover-fighting tea around 660 BC.

The “Bacchus” beverage has been popular in South Korea for many years. Originally, it was sold in pharmacies as an herbal medicine to prevent colds and cure hangovers. But the most popular remedy for a hangover is considered the Haejangguk, a vegetable soup. To many of my Korean friends, that and water or fruit juices to prevent dehydration are thought of as extremely effective.

The US National Institutes of Health admit that “alcohol re-administration alleviates the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal and hangover” (sic).

Actually, after considerable very early personal experiences on the subject, I believe that prevention rather than cure is the best approach. But if you do over-indulge, a blend of fruit and vegetable juices or a green tea will help with dehydration.

Having said that, I will also confess that I actually loved some of the remedies like seafood ceviche and mote (large kernels of white corn) served at 4:00 in the morning at Santiago’s Mercado Central. Whether it worked or not, I had a lot of it.

To your health!