Picture this. You went out the night before and had 10 shots of tequila, 4 beers, 2 rum and cokes, 1 whiskey ginger, and maybe an Irish Car Bomb. Then the next morning you wake up with THE WORST headache of your life and all you can smell is alcohol. Your whole body aches and the only thing you crave is 7 gallons of water. This is known as the legendary hangover. Most of us are all too familiar with it, but a game changing substance is in the works and could make the hangover a thing of the past.
David Nutt, a drug scientist and professor at London’s Imperial College, has come up with a “synthetic alcohol” that is hangover free. Dubbed “Alcosynth“, the purpose of the substance is to mimic the euphoric effects of alcohol minus headache, nausea, vomiting, and pain.
The creation of this substitute substance has been ten years in the making. After experimenting with 80 different substances, Nutt’s team has narrowed down the selection to five. The one that best mimics the way alcohol works but poses less of a threat on the brain will be submitted to the Food Standard Agency (Britain’s equivalent of the FDA) as a cutting edge food ingredient.
How does this work one may ask? The answer lies in the fact that alcosynth is void of acetaldehyde which is the substance that is responsible for hangovers. The build up of acetaldehyde causes the symptoms of the regrettable condition so many of us fear.
According to Nutt, the plan is to have alcosynth in 100 bars by 2020 and have alcohol replaced by it by 2050. This is quite a feat as his team needs $11.8 million to have safety checks done in order to have the substance certifiably safe for human consumption.
In an interview with The Independent Nutt said,
“It will be there alongside the scotch and the gin, they’ll dispense the alcosynth into your cocktail and then you’ll have the pleasure without damaging your liver and your heart. They go very nicely into mojitos. They even go into something as clear as a Tom Collins. One is pretty tasteless, the other has a bitter taste.”
In the meantime party hard but drink responsibly.