Scientists Discover Booze That Won't Give You a Hangover 334
Kwang-il Kwon and Hye Gwang Jeong of Chungnam National University have discovered that drinking alcohol with oxygen bubbles added leads to fewer hangovers and a shorter sobering up time. People drinking the bubbly booze sobered up 20-30 minutes faster and had less severe and fewer hangovers than people who drank the non-fizzy stuff. Kwon said: "The oxygen-enriched alcohol beverage reduces plasma alcohol concentrations faster than a normal dissolved-oxygen alcohol beverage does. This could provide both clinical and real-life significance. The oxygen-enriched alcohol beverage would allow individuals to become sober faster, and reduce the side effects of acetaldehyde without a significant difference in alcohol's effects. Furthermore, the reduced time to a lower BAC may reduce alcohol-related accidents."
Beer (Score:5, Insightful)
Reducing hangover is all fine and good, but if it sobers you up faster couldn't you just get a beer with less alcohol? The effect is basically the same.
For that matter, the high and fast drunkenness is probably even worse. You know it goes away fast, so you drink faster and more. This would probably be good for taking a one quick beer at lunch or so, but hangover isn't an issue then.
If I'm going out or take some beers otherwise, I rather have it last longer and be more balanced over the night. That's also why I prefer those Belgian 11% beers. In addition to having more taste in them, one glass lasts a lot longer and you don't need to be pissing all the time.
Now give me a 80% vodka with no hangovers and I'm ready to roll.
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Trouble with adding oxygen to beers is it spoils the beer! You would have to dissolve it in the beer immediately before serving and assure that all of it was consumed in a timely manner. This is also ignoring the fact that carbonation actually does contribute some flavor to beer.
Cheers.
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As a brewer by profession I would like to make it known: Oxygen is the enemy plain and simple. After/during fermentation it should not come in contact with the beer/wort until it's in the customer's glass. We take great measures to assure this.
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That sounds like a dangerous idea in a smoking bar.
I still drink in good ol' fashion pubs, where they serve more dark ales than pale American drink (it hurts to call it beer). Most of the customers smoke. About half the bar staff smoke when there is a lull in orders. It's not an ideal place to release a gaseous oxidizer.
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I mean, it isn't easy to get a hangover from beer. It is mostly water, you can drink and drink and drink the stuff, get a good buzz, but rarely can you drink enough to get a bad hangover in my experience.
However, these days...and yes, I'm getting older and the old liver won't function quite as well...but you drink half a bottle or so of scotch...and you're gonna be hurting a bit the next day.
I'd have to think tho, that adding O2 to good
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Unless it has a retroactive effect... What I mean is that you can drink regular beer all night, and then the last beer or two are these oxy-enriched beers. That way the added oxygen helps speed up recovery, but doesn't have a detrimental effect during drinking (At least as far as the buzz factor goes)...
Now, that I think about it, I wonder if these effe
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Seems to me I have read before that fighter pilots have been using a shot of O2 to clear up a hangover for a long time. At least since the 80's.
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A 190 proof white lightening session will mess you up so bad that you'll never even know that you had a hangover.
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How do you get your car back home then....?
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Reducing hangover is all fine and good, but if it sobers you up faster couldn't you just get a beer with less alcohol?
Not really. The idea is that if you would normally get buzzed with a given number of drinks and take 2 hours to sober up, this lets you get just as buzzed on just as many drinks but (for example) take only one hour to sober up. Half the alcohol will only get you half buzzed. Drink enough half beer to get buzzed and you're back to the 2 hour sober up.
I misread the title (Score:2)
Instead of
"Scientists Discover Booze That Won't Give You a Hangover"
I thought it said:
"Scientists Discover That Booze Won't Give You a Hangover"
I thought: gee, what great news! There's no such thing as a hangover! I guess those people with after-party headaches had just happened to come down with some sinusitis!
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Re:Beer (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Beer (Score:5, Funny)
No, I did mean 80%. It kicks ass ;)
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Actually, he used a percentage measurement. Which is valid on both "sides of the pond", as well as anywhere else in the universe that has "math".
Most people measure alcohol in percentage ABV. Only old-timers use "proof".
And "degrees proof" is only really used in the UK, despite it making no sense. "Degrees" of what, exactly? In America, it's just "proof", if it's used at all. Usually it ain't, as places that require labeling of ABV require a percentage measurement. Nowhere requires a "proof" to be put on th
Re:Beer (Score:5, Informative)
Though most of them are now listed in the "%ABV(#Proof) format. Kind of sad, since it shows that some people are too stupid to realize that proof is just ABV/2.
Irony, thy name is "Omestes".
Proof = ABV * 2, not ABV / 2.
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Re:Beer (Score:4, Insightful)
Kind of sad, since it shows that some people are too stupid to realize that proof is just ABV/2.
That was sort of the point of my original conversation.
Proof = ABV * 2, but only in the United States. In the United Kingdom, Proof = 7/4 * ABV. Meaning that pure ethanol is 175 degrees proof in the UK, but 200 proof in the US. A vodka that US people would call 80 proof would only be 70 proof in the UK.
Proof is basically an historical measurement only, and here in the US we don't even have the correct ratio to make it historically accurate. 7:4 is the correct ratio for the gunpowder explanation, not 2:1. So proof, as you use it, is totally meaningless.
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I'll go shut up now.
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No, he meant 160 proof double vodka.
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So you're saying oxygen enriched Bacardi 151 [wikipedia.org] or 190 proof Everclear [wikipedia.org] could be hazardous? :)
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Mmmm, Everclear...
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I have to admit, shots of Everclear are a bit harsher than most drinks I've had. :)
Re:Hope they don't try this with hard liquor (Score:4, Funny)
I’d be able to tell a story about Everclear, if only I remembered it.
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Yeah, but back in High School and College..it was the PERFECT stuff for a jungle juice party. You just have the price of admission be a pint or half pint of clear booze, preferably PGA (Everclear)...line a large trash can with plastic liners, fill with ice, booze and hawaiian punch (or something similar) and then, instant party. Man, you could get chicks trashed with that stuff quick too!! This was really great too i
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Ahhh, the good ol' days. I remember those parties. It's respectable-ish to start, and pretty much an orgy by the end of the night. What I wouldn't give to be a stupid teenager again. :) Maybe in the next life. Of course, we have to remember the "no fat chicks" rule on the party invitations. Well, unless one of your friends is a chubby chaser, and he'd better corral the cows out of sight. :)
[/me ducks from the "big boned" women in the audience]
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Re:Beer (Score:5, Funny)
A solution to the problem does exist, though. It's called "everything in moderation."
... including moderation.
I find I personally like my moderation in moderate amounts.
Re:Beer (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll second that.
Another cause is nervous system acclimation to the alcohol. EtOH is a central nervous system depressant -- in response to prolonged periods of EtOH intoxication, the nervous system ramps up production of some neurotransmitters. When the alcohol intoxication wears off, your nervous system is primed to over-react to stimuli. This is why loud noise and bright light is so bothersome to people with hangovers. I believe it is also why some of the effects of dehydration (especially the headache!) are so pronounced when hung over.
Tag as synthohol? (Score:2, Interesting)
Can someone tag this as synthohol from star trek.
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My fool-proof no-hangover method (Score:5, Informative)
I have followed this rule religiously once I started drinking socially. As a result, I have never gotten a hangover. Here it is:
For every three beers or three shots you drink, drink a glass of water. Also, try to make sure you drink a glass of water before falling asleep.
You will be hangover free...guaranteed. Simple, safe, and effective.
Bathroom break (Score:2, Insightful)
That only works because you end up spending half the evening in the bathroom, and therefore consume less alcohol than your buddies.
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With our Civilization 4 drinking game (drink every time you hear Leonard Nimoy's voice from ANYONE's Civ 4 game in the LAN), there is no such thing as consuming less, lol :-)
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Why is that a bad thing?
Drink enough to enjoy yourself not enough to regret it in the morning.
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what, you don't enjoy getting puking drunk and a day-long hangover to follow? geez, what's the point then?
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Trouble is...drinking is just like potato chips, you can't eat just one.
That's the problem, when you drink, you feel good and just want to drink more to feel better. That and everything starts to go down much easier after the first one or two. Ever notice how that first shot of tequila is a bit rough (unless you are drinking some SERIOUSLY good stuff), yet the next ones get easier and smoother?
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There are a small percentage of people able to process alcohol in such a way that they _never_ get hangovers, at least according to my doctor. Since you've never had one, it's possible that you're one of them and would never get a hangover no matter what you did or didn't do.
Staying hydrated helps, but there is no guaranteed method that will work for everyone.
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Not drinking excessively* works for everyone.
*excessively meaning beyond a person's tolerance threshold. In some people's cases this may mean 0 drinks.
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Not drinking excessively?
That most definitely doesn’t work for some of us...
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Even better is to finish off with Gatorade or an equivalent sports drink. Most of the effects of a hangover can be replicated by severe dehydration. Cotton mouth, hiccups, headache, they're all from the dehydration. Only the liver toxicity is specific to the after effects of alcohol.
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They have that, they are called girly drinks they include 8oz of water to 1 shot of booze.
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The girly drinks contain a lot of sugar. Sugar which leads to radicals which can increase your hangover. If they're really syrupy they can even be hyperosmotic, which wouldn't help hydrate you at all.
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Get Back to Work!!! (Score:5, Funny)
No hangover - Good
Faster sober - Bad
You're not done mister, get back to the lab.
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(Tom Paxton)
[Chorus:]
Bottle of wine, fruit of the vine, when you gonna let me get sober. Let me alone. Let me go home. Let me back and start over.
Well, I've rambled around this dirty old town singing for nickels and dimes.
Times getting' rough. I can't get enough to buy me a little bottle of wine.
[Chorus]
Well, little hotel, older than hell, cold as the dark in the mine.
Light so dim, I had to grin, I got me a little bottle of wine.
[Chorus]
Well, the preacher will preach and the teacher will teach. The miner wi
Tag is misspelled. (Score:3, Informative)
It's synthehol [memory-alpha.org], not synthahol.
Profit for Bars! (Score:3, Insightful)
Wine (Score:2)
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Only to a point. A few months back I had this really nice red wine that was great after about an hour breathing, but then started getting worse from that point. Still good, just not as good. Aerating is tough and it's hard to find the sweet spot, since it can be different from varietal to varietal, vintage to vintage and even bottle to bottle. But yeah, generally speaking, adding some air to a freshly opened bottle is a good thing, but leaving it in a decanter for a week is not.
time to soberness (Score:4, Insightful)
When you are drunk, you are for hours. I don't think removing 20/30 minutes is that relevant.
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What he neglected to say was that 1 bottle of beer wears off per hour. So if you only drank at a rate of 1 beer per hour, then ... yeah, you’d never get drunk.
1 beer per hour should be just about enough to keep you drunk, though.
Side effects... (Score:5, Interesting)
I am not sure of the benefits of a alcoholic drink which "sobers up faster" other than "sells more booze, kaching!".
Since it has dissolved oxygen, would it whiten teeth too?
What would be revolutionary would be a drink which kept the imbibers drunk for a lengthy but known amount of time but after that time, the imbiber would sober up quickly without hangover...
i call bull (Score:2)
mix it with some RED bull! party! aiiiieee! (cue allegro mariachi music)
Do NOT Want (Score:5, Funny)
Bah... (Score:4, Funny)
You can get the same thing with an alcohol enema.
And we've all been there, right?!?
Right...?
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That's the sound of a grasshopper riding a tumbleweed.
Question? (Score:2)
Is the drink mentioned in the article available for purchase or is there equipment that you can use to oxygenate your own liquor?
Hydration (Score:3, Informative)
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Re:Hydration (Score:5, Funny)
Homebrewing with oxygen (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure how long oxidation needs to occur before the off flavors manifest though, so perhaps you could force-oxygenate at pour time.
Sounds like some experiments need to be done...
Flammability (Score:2)
It's not just for 75 proof anymore.
Also, the Molotovs are amazing (Score:2)
And it is.... (Score:2)
hmm... (Score:2)
What does the article talk about hangover-free drinking, then show a picture of soju? Soju is not alcohol; it is punishment in a bottle.
What will all this free oxygen do to people who consume the alcohol? Could it have some sort of side effect on the stomach/intestinal track? bleach your teeth?
Alcohol+oxygen as blood thinner? (Score:2)
Does adding oxygen somehow affect the blood-thinning properties of alcohol?
For that matter, how DOES alcohol act as a blood thinner, and for how long?
Those on Warfarin (aka Coumadin) want to know...
"No thanks, I like my beer like I like my women" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"No thanks, I like my beer like I like my women (Score:5, Funny)
Stout and thick-headed?
Re:"No thanks, I like my beer like I like my women (Score:5, Funny)
Flat and with yeast issues?
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Dark, Irish and able to put you on the floor with one hit?
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Made under the control of the German Purity Law?
Re:"No thanks, I like my beer like I like my women (Score:5, Funny)
Aged 2 months and picked up at the grocery store?
Are they really sure ... (Score:3, Funny)
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Now that you mention it ... that must be part of the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster. One false move with the glass in your hand, and your remains will be scattered all over the galaxy.
my diving instructor swore to it (Score:2, Interesting)
Then ascend according to your dive computer / decompression table.
Hangover - over
Somewhat Makes Sense from a Diving Perspective (Score:3, Informative)
Recently I became a licensed Scuba diver. One thing you learn in scuba diving classes is that you are more likely to get nitrogen poisoning if you are dehydrated, or had been drinking substantially the night before. Typically the way you do a first response treatment of nitrogen poisoning is by supplying pure oxygen.
I'm sure there's a Q.E.D. in there but I'm pretty sure I'm missing some steps.
fire? (Score:2)
Literally.
well known amongst aviators... (Score:5, Interesting)
ps, I was doing this over thirty years ago... and it was well known as a hangover cure back then...
Oxygen Tank (Score:3, Informative)
It's more effective if you just take a hit from an Oxygen tank.
Why try to jam the O2 into your drink?
Now for hookers that don't leave sores. (Score:2, Funny)
Burn it up (Score:2)
If I Wanted to Get Sober Faster (Score:2)
I don't have hangovers EVER. (Score:2)
It’s a simple solution, that some of my friends also do: The evening before going out, we eat a piece of good quality red meat. A filet steak preferably. That’s it. No hangover. No headache. Nothing.
We’re doing this for years.
Who cares what the researchers say (Score:4, Funny)
Who cares what the researchers say.
I'm going to have to do my own research. In cases like this, first hand knowledge is the only way to go.
Re:Soju with oxygen? (Score:5, Informative)
One goes to great lengths (for good reason) when bottling beverages to remove existing oxygen, and prevent introduction of new oxygen.
If this technique for reducing hangovers becomes popular it will need to be done shortly before consumption. (Value-added service at the bar?)
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One goes to great lengths (for good reason) when bottling beverages to remove existing oxygen, and prevent introduction of new oxygen.
If this technique for reducing hangovers becomes popular it will need to be done shortly before consumption. (Value-added service at the bar?)
Exactly. What this really means is that nobody gets a hangover because heavily oxidized alcohol beverages taste like @$%!
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Guinness had to solve this exact problem, except with nitrogen instead of oxygen. I think they have a patent on the little plastic capsule filled with gas that only releases when the can/bottle is opened, but other than that I don't see why the same method couldn't be used to release oxygen.
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The Guinness "widget" works because it doesn't require a trigger to release the nitrogen, the pressure change of opening the bottle/can does it. It's based off the fact that nitrogen won't dissolve into beer very easily. I don't think the same device would work with O2.
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Soju is in most liquor stores, but I don't believe it is sold pre-oxygenated.
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Yup
Showed this to a brewer with Diageo at their St. James gate plant.... he lolled. Oxygen might prevent a hangover... it'll prevent you from bloody drinking by spoiling your pint.
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I know it will spoil your bear if you keep it that way, but what if you oxygenate it right before it comes out of the tap, like a soda fountain. It doesn't go bad instantly does it? If you have a chance, I'ld be interested to what your brewer has to say.
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