Mercury Happy Hour Guide: The moaning after

Chaser pills claim to prevent hangovers. We'll drink to that

Wiping a slimy rope of vomit off my chin as we sped home on the freeway, I had already begun to have doubts about Chaser hangover prevention pills. I mean, if I felt this shitty now, how would I feel in the morning?

"Are you going to throw up again? Do you want me to pull over?" my Designated Driver asked.

"Nawsh," I said. "Ah'm dooen just vine."

Then I flung my head out the window and firehosed the side of the car with another chunky stream.

An unusual end, indeed, to a night devoted to scientific pursuits. But when you're testing the claims of Chaser, a much-hyped hangover prevention pill, drinking to excess is part of the scientific method. And Chaser's claims scream to be tested. Developed by Michigan-based biotech firm Living Essentials, Chaser is supposed to spell the end of the all-too-common hangover symptoms that have afflicted frat pledge, foolhardy reveler and functioning alcoholic alike: the crushing headaches, the creeping nausea, the fatigue--and, most of all, that overriding sense of your soul having been smeared across a microscope slide by some infernal thumb.

As the company's website tells it, Chaser (www.doublechaser.com) works by absorbing congeners, which are the byproducts of the fermentation process in making alcohol; congeners are also the main culprit in causing hangovers. In short, Chaser sucks up the congeners and lets the alcohol do its important work of making you the smartest, sexiest and most charming person in the room.

Thus, on a recent Friday, my colleague Newt Briggs and I retired to the lab for some serious research--the lab, in this case, being the Huntridge Tavern, where barkeeps Judy and Keith were kind enough to underwrite us with "scientific instruments," which included five pitchers of Foster's, three Jack and Cokes and two scotch and sodas. (Thanks for putting up with us--are we allowed back?)

With a 10-pack of the pills and a designated driver at our side, we followed the directions, taking two pills with our first drink, and then one more pill every three or four drinks. And so we drank. And drank. And talked--about politics, music, culture and how smart, sexy and charming we were quickly becoming. And drank some more. And hurled insults at people, peed a lot and smoked even more. And drank. By midnight, the pills were gone and we were flopping around like walruses in a tilt-a-whirl. A bug-eyed Newt stumbled home. I was herded into the truck and spirited home by Designated Driver.

And the next morning, the verdict? I awoke to one flaming jackhammer of a hangover.

The crushing headache. The creeping nausea. The infernal thumb. And where did all my charm, smarts and sexiness go? I felt like shit. Newt reported the same.

So, as far as this experiment suggests, Chaser probably isn't the hangover remedy you're looking for. Alas, until science does conjure up that magic pill, we'll have to rely on that old-fashioned, bitter medicine that's proven to be the only cure for hangovers: moderation.--Andrew Kiraly