he most important drink
you’ll swallow this summer
Can hangovers from hell finally
be put to bed by a toxin-busting
new cure? By Charlie Teasdale
he familiar post-boozing
fog wasn’t as thick. I was
slugish but my insides
felt clean... I had a small
but very real headache‘hree more large ones for the road!’:
John Goodman, Will Ferrell and Alec
Baldwin as hard-drinking salesmen on
Saturday Night Live, December 1998
“Boss, I’ve found a company in America that
claim to have created a drink that severely
lessens the ater-efects of drinking alcohol.”
“Right...”
“It stops you geting a hangover, apparently.
I want to get drunk, test it out and write
about it.”
“OK, but you need to get really drunk.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
So I got really drunk. he kind of drunk
that takes a full day to arrive. A sweay, sad
drunk that comes from wine at lunch, beer in
the aternoon and gin in the evening. I ate only
crisps. Normally, I hit something of a wall
ater a few hours; the floor spins, everything
becomes just out of reach, and if anything
more goes in then there’s a good chance it
won’t stay in for long. But this was work, and
I’m a hard worker, so the drinks kept coming.Earlier in the day, I’d spoken to Rosy Zhao, who
works at 82 Labs in Los Angeles, the drinks company
behind Morning Recovery. I asked questions about its
efectiveness, whether there were any side efects and
if there was a limit to how much I could drink before it
was redundant. If I stayed up all night on the Dubonnet
and sodas, could the potion have me square for a 9.15am
breakfast meeting?
“I think you’re trying to figure out the relativiy of how
much you’re trying to take the pain away, right?”
Somehow, over the phone from over 5,000 miles away,
she had looked into my very soul. But, yes, I wanted to
know the limits of its succour. “You’re not going to feel 110
per cent [the morning ater], but it will get you to 80 per
cent,” asserted Zhao.
he drink uses electrolytes, vitamins, amino acids and
Hovenia dulcis (DHM), a Japanese raisin tree extract that
is used as a remedy for liver ailments (and hangovers)
throughout Asia. It speeds up the liver’s abiliy to flush out
toxins. So it’s best taken while you’re drinking, or within
an hour of your last drink, which I deemed the best option.
My usual pre-bed, anti-hangover prep consists of a pint
or two of “London springs” and a couple of Nurofen. But
this time I simply pulled my chilled Morning Recovery
from the fridge, slung the 100ml of slightly viscose, peach-
flavoured elixir down my gullet and got into bed.
Did it work? Yes! (And no.)
Seven or so hours later, the sun streamed in on me,
and I was hungover. But the familiar post-boozing fog
wasn’t as thick. I was slugish, but my insides felt clean,
like a chip van ater an oil change. I had a small but very
real headache, but I’d say that I was at 60 per cent. Less
than Zhao had promised, but not bad.
“It’s not an energy drink,” she had explained, “you’re
waking up with the intention of an absence of something,versus a kick. So people are a litle confused.”
Would I use Morning Recovery again? Probably.
Maybe at a festival or something, but I’m not going to
bank on it swating away the backlash of an eight-Martini
dinner. I’m a firm believer that you get the hangover
you deserve, and if you can’t handle the punishment,
don’t commit the crime.
“If you actually want to feel something physical, then
that would be associated with drinking.” I’d asked Zhao
if Morning Recovery would have any efect if you hadn’t
already consumed alcohol. But I think she hit upon a
wider truth. Booze is the great, visceral leveller, and the
“something” isn’t anything without the nothing that
comes ater.
£54/12 botles (100ml each); int.morningrecoverydrink.com38 Style
Lucy if Sharp | Gety