There is no all-consuming black hole of despair quite like a hangover. That incessant pounding on your temples, as if some malign goblin has taken up residence inside your brain and is hammering its way out. Spinning room, sandy mouth, bloodshot eyes glued shut. Ears still ringing with fragments of music from the night before. An overwhelming sense of self-loathing, paranoia – and pain.
Kingsley Amis famously described the sensation in his 1954 novel Lucky Jim: “Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way,” he wrote. “He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of the morning. The light did him harm… he resolved never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he’d somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.”
We’ve all been there. According to research by Macmillan Cancer Support, the average Briton spends 315 days of their life hungover; for one in 14 of us, it’s a head-pounding 3,024. And each of us has our own failsafe way to climb out of that black hole and claw our way back towards feeling human again – be it a bottle of Lucozade, popping a couple of Alka-Seltzer, a greasy fry-up or hair of the dog.
According to a raft of celebrities, however, there’s only one cure that truly takes the edge off after a big night out: Coca-Cola. The “Black Doctor”, as it’s been dubbed, has become the A-list hangover fix of choice.
Justin Bieber, Kate Moss, Pixie Geldof, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears and Tom Cruise have all been spotted glugging the black stuff while looking worse-for-wear in recent months. According to a feature in December's Vogue magazine, Coca-Cola has "the perfect sugar-to-caffeine ratio when you're exhausted and veering dangerously towards hypoglycaemia after a night on the fruit punch." A-list fans say the fizziness settles the stomach, the caffeine boosts your energy - and the sugary goodness in one 330ml can make you feel a whole world of better
Though co*ke is not marketed as a hangover cure, its pick-me-up properties are nothing new. Lt Col John Pemberton, a trained pharmacist, invented the fizzy drink in Atlanta, Georgia, in May 1886, in a bid to wean himself off morphine, to which he had become addicted after becoming wounded during the American Civil War.
Pemberton tried his new invention out on customers at his local chemist, Jacobs' Pharmacy, where he sold it as a "valuable brain tonic" that was "delicious, refreshing, pure joy, exhiliarating" and "a most wonderful invigorator of sexual organs". It proved so popular that it immediately went on sale at five cents a glass.
His new beverage was made by mixing caffeine from cola nuts with cocaine from coca leaves (the cocaine was later substituted), and adding a thick syrupy base. Soon, its reputation had spread far beyond the chemist's clients, and customers were coming from far and wide to try Pemberton's "miracle cure".
Pemberton's advertisem*nt for his new carbonated drink
Over a century later, Coca-Cola has cemented itself in our psyche as so much more than a medicinal beverage: as a cult-brand, advertising behemoth and most of America's carbonated drink of choice. Though its curative qualities are long-forgotten, the company's mission statement still references its roots: "to inspire moments of optimism". And some fans have continued to extol its hangover-curing properties. Indeed, in 1938, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel started serving its international guests a mixture of Coca-Cola and milk after a heavy night out.
But it's the new legion of A-list fans raving about the "Black Doctor" that has led to Coca-Cola being dubbed the best hangover cure. So is there any truth to their claims?
Nutritionist Claire Baseley says there is - to a certain extent. "When you’re hungover, you need to hydrate your body. The way you feel – that headache – it’s mostly caused by dehydration. Something like Coca-Cola has lots of sugar and fluids and will put those back into your body to get your energy levels up. The caffeine will also give you an energy boost."
But, she adds, "there are better options from a hydration perspective. Obviously it would be better if you had something like water or a sports energy drink. My recommendation would be to drink lots of water and have something that’s easy on your stomach like a dry piece of toast. The negative side of Coca-Cola is its high sugar content and, after a big night out, you’re probably not going to be doing lots of exercise to counteract that. But I wouldn't say never. As a grab and go drink, it's not too bad once in a while."
We all have our own remedies for beating a hangover
Melanie Brown, a London-based nutritionist, is less convinced. "The combination of sugar, caffeine, fluid, fizz and cold gives people the impression that their hangover is better," she explains. "It is a fluid so will solve your thirst to a certain extent, but it does not contain much in the way of electrolytes; minerals that aid rehydration. And some people claim that the fizzy bit settles your stomach - but apart from possibly relieving gas build up, there's no evidence for that."
Still, co*ke converts won't be convinced. As one celebrity aficionado tells Vogue: "One of my more hardcore partying friends adds vodka to her Black Doctor, at breakfast."
Each to their own. But definitely something to bear in mind next time you're clawing your way back from the bottom of a bottle.
