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For me hangovers are an inevitable nuisance. Many of my weekends contain a few hours of alcohol-infused discomfort -- usually in the form of a Saturday or Sunday morning headache coupled with a general feeling of sloth. Occasionally I get a much worse beast to contend with, usually after my birthday, New Year's Eve, or St. Patrick's Day. During such an attack I picture my brain, completely devoid of its naturally protective liquid coat, 2 inches smaller in size than normal, bumping against the inside of my skull. But big or small, I've learned to accept the hangover. I like bars. I like drinking with friends. I'm going to get hangovers.

Being a cocktail-loving, hangover-plagued entity, my ears perked up when I first heard Skyy Vodka's claim that its product is so pure it won't cause a hangover. Could it be true? Does mankind face alcohol-fueled malaise unnecessarily? I was enthralled, but also hesitant. We are talking about Skyy, after all, a company locked in marketing overdrive -- the ultra-modern cobalt blue bottle, the fashionable advertising campaigns, the dual Y's. Such a trend-savvy company surely wouldn't be above making up or over-promoting hangover-free properties just to sell more vodka. Or would it? In the interest of separating hope from hype, I lifted my glass Skyyward to test the claim.

Also Today Bottoms up Raw eggs, Guinness and pastrami can help your hangover, but don't mix them. By Steven A. Shaw

But before I start pounding vodka, let me provide a little background on Skyy's assertion. The story, as is oft told by the San Francisco-based distiller, goes that the company's founder, Maurice Kanbar, scientifically engineered Skyy to be consistently free of congener content. Congeners, bits of amyl alcohol, propyl alcohol, isopropyl alcohol and other impurities, naturally come along for the ride through the distillation process (ethyl alcohol is what actually gets you drunk). In this effort Skyy is distilled a whopping four times at various temperatures to remove specific congeners, and purified three times to remove others. For comparison, Smirnoff vodka -- another common domestic brand -- is distilled twice.

Skyy's congener story does have a basis in fact, according to Jordan Friedman, director of health education at Columbia University. Congeners, Friedman explains, do contribute to the headache aspect of a hangover. Liquors such as rum and whiskey tend to be high in congeners and yield bigger headaches, while liquors such as vodka and gin tend to be lower in congeners, producing smaller headaches.

But, Friedman warns, congeners only play one part in alcohol-related headaches and hangovers. In addition there's the dehydration caused by any alcohol, which can result in headaches and overall discomfort. Add to that alcohol's acidic traits, which give you gastrointestinal distress, and the fact that alcohol disturbs natural REM cycles, leaving a drinker tired and sluggish. To make matters worse, according to Friedman, hangovers are almost mini withdrawals. The body is at some level crying out for more booze.

While Skyy's hangover-free claim does have a reasonable scientific grounding, the question is, will congener-free vodka notably reduce real-life hangovers. This is the question I set out to answer, coordinating my methodology accordingly.

Next page | In the spirit of science, I set up a series of cocktail parties