The Professional Drinker's Survival Guide
"Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake."--W. C. Fields
AS COCKTAIL AND SPIRITS DEVELOPERS, people often ask us how we survive drinking for a living. Simple. It is a lot like handling snakes. If you know what you’re doing you don’t get bitten as often. But that little bastard still gets you every time you let your guard down.
What do we face in our line of work? Most people would call rounds of pre-breakfast pick-me-ups, a few dozen afternoon cocktails, or hitting 12 bars in an evening a problem. It is just a paycheck for us.
Taste-testing a new gin formula every day at 8 AM for six months straight, judging forty cocktails in one sitting at a competition, or facing ten martinis each night for two consecutive nights of research for an article or book is about the norm. And in the morning? A slight hangover if we ignore our rules, but nothing serious.
Before we tell you how we survive bouts that would have sent W.C. Fields running for cover--or Courtney Love back to rehab--we should tell you that we're still on our first livers, and our doctor recently told us we're both in great shape.
But it wasn't always so easy. When we started down our perditious career path, we sought out as much wisdom as we could find. And most of the advice we found was horrendous.
One guy swore that downing a half-pint of olive oil beforehand would coat his stomach and turn him into a superman. Chug a bottle of olive oil? Give us the hangover, please.
Another swore that a quart of buttermilk would do the trick. We heard the same of bread, a stick of butter, pasta, meat. You name it. But it all amounted to the same bit of common sense: never drink on an empty stomach. We never do.
What’s the rest of our survival plan?
Don’t drink too much. It’s easy to get through 50 drinks in a day if you never finish them. The second sip is best anyways. The remainder is best left for alcoholics and amateurs. At the end of the day, if you were too well behaved, you can always reward yourself with a beer.
You might have heard the wives' tale about mixing different alcohols. The truth is, the only reason not to have beer, wine, rum, brandy, whiskey, tequila, gin and vodka in a single evening is that it adds up to at least eight drinks and a whopping hangover. If you sip and lose them, it doesn’t matter how many different spirits you mix.
More often than not, the primary cause of hangover pain is not alcohol toxicity. It is dehydration. We make a point of drinking a glass of water between each cocktail. "How am I supposed to get through 14 glasses of water in a night?" you ask. The point is: If you can’t imagine drinking that much water, you’re definitely drinking too much alcohol.
When you get home, don’t have a nightcap. Ever. You might as well hit yourself in the back of the head with a double old-fashioned glass before bed. Drink more water. We're talking about a pint or a quart, not a couple of gallons. Sports drinks aren't bad either.
If you know you've had too much, try to stay awake for a while. If you've had far too much, head for the bathroom and purge. Then consider going to the emergency room. Aside from saving your life, it should embarrass you into better behavior in the future.
Take a multivitamin before going to sleep—vitamin B depletion is another cause of hangover pain. When we're in the UK, we have buttered toast with Marmite—made from vitamin B-rich brewer’s yeast—and a fried egg before hitting the sack.
Ginseng is an excellent pick-me-up if you take it before bed. Don’t take ibuprofin, aspirin or acetaminophen. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the combination of alcohol and these pain relievers may cause liver and/or kidney damage.
Still end up with a hangover? Head for the palliatives. Begin with hydration and more sleep. Then make the transition toward food. Avoid spicy foods. You’ve got an injured stomach. Try toast, pasta, chicken soup—any comfort that appeals when you’ve got the flu. Eggs Benedict was invented as a hangover cure at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria by a hung-over Wall Street broker guest named Lemuel Benedict.
Close friends in the UK swear by The Original Pick Me-Up— a restorative bitters you take in a glass of water—dispensed by D.R. Harris & Company of London.
Here's a secret we picked up from a few Russian friends: Sweat the alcohol out of your system. Once every couple of weeks or so, we take a schvitz (Yiddish for "sweat") at the Tenth Street Baths or Spa 88 in New York. The boiling hot Turkish and Russian baths plus eucalyptus steam room eliminate the toxins, relieve the aches and pains, and make you feel ten years younger.
Above all, never try the "hair of the dog" which only delays the inevitable and does considerable damage in the meantime. Instead, just keep reminding yourself as you lie in a darkened room wincing at the slightest noise that you will never, ever touch another drop as long as you live--at least until you are feeling better.
As the hangover strikes
And I turn on the tap
But the water's too loud
And I'm caged by the fact
That the battle's not lost
Is it the hair of the dog
Or the Baa of a Lamb
In a sheepish attempt
To be half of the man
That I might be or was
--from "When the Hangover Strikes" by Squeeze
Copyright 1995-2006 Jared Brown & Anistatia Miller. Shaken Not Stirred is a registered service mark. All rights reserved. The contents of this page was expressly posted for individual viewing purposes on the internet only. No part of this web site may be published, reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (including electronic, mechanical, photocopy) whatsoever without written permission from the above copyright holder.
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Tuesday, November 14, 2006
