It's been touted as a miracle drink, with everything from anti-inflammatory properties to enzymes that purportedly slow alcohol absorption. But would it help this writer survive a weekend in Fire Island? A very scientific GQ investigation.

Sometimes there are things in life that seem too good to be true. Like the fact that people from Hamburg, Germany are, by definition, called Hamburgers. And how the fastest human on the planet has the surname Bolt. Just this past August there were reports from the medical community that added to the train of sweet irony: Australian scientists potentially found the most unlikely of cures to what wide-eyed college students might refer to as the modern plague?the morning after hangover. Studies suggest that the answer may have even been in front of us all along, in the form of Korean pear juice.

Yet, before we collectively swan dive into a pool filled with pear juice, it might be prudent to understand the history of the hangover. Although I wasn’t present when alcohol was initially conceived, I remain fairly confident the first ever hangover occurred that following morning. From the beginning, hangover remedies have long plagued and perplexed our species. Pliny the Elder, a philosopher and army commander of the early Roman Empire, counseled his people to eat fried canaries or raw owl’s eggs (ironically, there now exists a California IPA beer that bears Pliny the Elder’s name). Ancient Assyrians (c. 1250 B.C. - 612 B.C.) seemed to still be drunk when they went about consuming ground bird beaks and incense. The Mongolians, never to be outdone, ate pickled sheep’s eyes. Puerto Ricans took the more natural route by rubbing lemons under their armpits before knocking a few back. Or, there was always the Hemingway approach. The novelist was no stranger to a night of over-imbibing, or its repercussions. His hangover solution was said to be tomato juice and beer. Sound advice from the man who once wrote, “an intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.”

Of course, I’ve known all too well what a hangover felt like, but before testing the merits of the supposed miracle drink, I had to understand what, scientifically speaking, a hangover meant. My first attempts were through Dr. Google M.D., the best search engine/physician I have come to rely on. According to the all-knowing machine, a hangover is when dehydration, caused by the diuretic effect of ethanol, eventually leads to the shrinkage of brain tissue, and causes, among many symptoms, severe headache. Simply knowing this information will make my future hangovers so much worse.

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