Hangover cures: Fried skull, bull’s penis’ soup, lemon in the armpit?

“I drink to make other people more interesting,” Ernst Hemingway had said. With the festive spirit dampened by the pandemic, the need to make people more interesting is getting louder. Beer will flow and whisky will go on the rocks this festive season. But wait, before you step near the keg, prep your hangover-cure plans. Not the usual cures, please. Think of pickled sheep’s eyes, fried skull, and/or washing testicles with vinegar.

Brunch, eggs Benedict, Bloody Marys, and Coca-Cola were all invented to cure hangovers. Here are a few unusual hangover cures.

Pickled sheep’s eyes: Imagine waking up from a drunken stupor and finding two pickled sheep’s eyes in the breakfast bowl. That’s what the ancient Mongols did. Now, they wash down the pickled eyes with tomato juice and call it Mongolian Mary. The Polish ignore the eyes, they drink the pickle juice bottoms-up.

Lemon in the armpit: Before binge-drinking, rub a slice of lemon in the armpit. Make sure you rub it in the pit of your drinking arm. The wrong pit and you’ll be hungover long. The Puerto Ricans insist that the armpit lemon keeps the drinker hydrated.

Bull’s penis soup: This national hangover cure of Bolivia sure looks pretty grotesque. Imagine about a foot-long (often, more) penis of the bull floating in the soup which is simmered for 10 hours. Later, rice,potatoes, eggs, and pieces of red meat are added to the cauldron. Even if you are not hungover, try it. It is a potent aphrodisiac.

Rabbit poop in the tea: The cowboys will tell you that rabbit poop pellet in the teapot is not a joke. It is a nutrient-laden poo with enough salt and nutrients (remember, potassium) to drive the alcohol blues away.

Powdered skull of a man: It’s a hangover cure that King Charles II often prescribed. Powdered skull of a man who had recently been hanged. Add a dollop of dripped viper (a venomous snake) and garnish with ammonia. Dr Jonathan Goddard who concocted this in 17th century called the cure Goddard’s Drops.

Wash testicles/breast with salt & vinegar: This one seems a tad cruel and tedious. In Medieval England, a physician named John of Gaddesden suggested: If any one have drunk too much, if it be a man the testicles should be washed with salt and vinegar, and if it be a woman, the breasts should  be dipped in vinegar.

Fried canary & owl’s raw egg: Trust the Romans with their Bacchanalian nights and a fried canary bird for the morning after. Owl’s raw eggs and sheep’s lungs were always on the hungover-brunch menu.

Drink vinegar, strip naked: In 19th century, a man came up with a vinegar-drinking cure. When drunk, drink a lot of vinegar but spare a few drops to rub on your temple. If this cure fails, strip naked and dump a bucket of water on the head.

Get buried in wet river sand: The Irish swear that burying yourself neck-deep in wet river sand will drive the worst hangover away. Not sure whether the ocean sand works, too. So, listen to the Irish. Stick yourself in a river’s wet sand.

Coca Cola & Milk: One fortuitous day, the barman of New York City’s Ritz-Carlton hotel squirted Coca Cola in a glass of milk and proclaimed it is the perfect hangover cure. In 1930s, no one questioned him when he said that after Cola-Milk drink, the drunkard would “take a little nap, and after that, you feel wonderful”.

Swallow’s burnt beak: Roman philosopher Pliny, the Elder, thought of more than life and its angst. He delved into pre-hangover: eat roasted lungs of the sheep before stepping into an ale house. And if that’s not appetising enough, he suggested bruising a swallow’s beak with myrrh, burning the beak and adding the ashes to wine to prevent getting inebriated.

Snort moss grown in a skull: Think of a human skull as a planter, grow moss in it, dry it, powder it and then snort it. Men in Old Europe followed this recipe.

Did you know?

• The top 10 holiday drinks are Eggnog: 40%, Coffee with Baileys: 34%, Christmas beer: 28%, Cider: 27%, Hot buttered rum: 21%, Hot toddy: 20%, Mulled wine: 19%, Tom and Jerry: 9%, Wassail: 8%, Glogg: 8%
• Päntsdrunk in Finnish means ‘to drink at home, alone, in your underwear’
• English has 3,000 words for being drunk, one of them being ‘oferdrincere’, an Old English word spoken before 1000 AD.
• When the Ancient Persians had to make an important political decision, they would debate it twice: once drunk and once sober. If they came to the same conclusion both times, they acted.
• The pressure in a champagne bottle is 90 pounds per square inch, that is three times the pressure in automobile tires.
• It is illegal to feed alcohol to moose in Alaska and fishes in Ohio.
• The Babylonian Code of Hammurabi stated that bartenders who watered down beer would be executed.