Rejoice: This Researcher Claims to Have Concocted Hangover-Free Alcohol

A London-based researcher claims he's created synthetic alcohol that will get you drunk without the hangover.

liquor
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liquor

All of the buzz, none of the hangover sounds like a pretty tall order for a bottle of liquor, but Imperial College professor and researcher David Nutt is claiming to have delivered just that. He says he's created a synthetic alcohol that will mimic the positive effects of the real stuff, and he told The Independent he's hoping to disrupt the entire alcohol industry by getting rid of liquor by 2050.

The product is called "alcosynth," and Nutt> says he's patented 90 different compounds—though he's only focusing on two of them in the short term.

"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," he told The Independent. "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."

Nutt says his synthetic alcohol is designed to get you tipsy by incorporating compounds that respond to the same parts of your brain that alcohol does—or so he says. The Independent notes that Nutt was "sacked from his position as the government drugs tsar in 2009 after he claimed taking ecstasy was less dangerous than riding a horse."

Users also wouldn't be able to black out from drinking. Nutt claims the effects of the synthetic alcohol begin to cap around four or five drinks.

"We know where the good effects of alcohol are mediated in the brain, and can mimic them. And by not touching the bad areas, we don't have the bad effects," he said.

The Health Ministry, for its part, told the paper that the idea was "interesting" but still in its "infancy."

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