South Koreans, Asia's biggest lushes, already soothe their sore heads with some $126 million in annual hangover "cure" sales that run the full gamut of pills, beverages, foods, and even cosmetics to help soften skin. That doesn't even count the "hangover soup" that has become a regular on many restaurant menus, while their most popular hangover beverage, Hut-gae Condition, is now sold in China, Japan, and Vietnam, reports Reuters.
Now, South Koreans can add to their arsenal a hangover ice cream called the Gyeondyo-bar, which literally translates to "hang in there," a name its maker says "expresses the hardships of employees who have to suffer a working day after heavy drinking, as well as to provide comfort to those who have to come to work early after frequent nights of drinking."
The dessert is grapefruit flavored and contains 0.7 percent oriental raisin tree fruit juice, which has been cited in a Korean medicine book that dates back to the 1600s, while a small study published in the Journal of Neuroscience in 2012 found that oriental raisin tree extract appears to reduce symptoms of intoxication in rats. Whether it works in humans remains to be seen, but sales numbers will soon tell whether the locals are, ahem, buying it.
But the ice cream is limited to the convenience store chain marketing it, so, "unfortunately for hungover people around the world," notes Vice's Munchies, "you'll have to stick to whatever has been getting you through your Monday mornings."
(In related news, this group of researchers rather apologetically insists that there is only one proven way to prevent hangovers.)
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