We’ve all been there: the party that started on a whim, just a couple drinks with your buddies at work to take the edge off the day, then you looked at your watch… It was six o’clock and you brought steaks down from the freezer this morning and really should cook them tonight or they’ll go bad. You announce your intentions to go home and suddenly everything kicks up a notch – it turns out that Angela from procurement knows all the lyrics to every song from West Side Story, and Dave from accounting played Tony in a high school production of it. These are things that would have taken months to find out at work, you can’t go home now. The three of you re-enact the entire first act of the musical, and then everybody starts talking about scrambled eggs in a way that makes you realize that you never really, truly tasted them. You stumble home in a half lit bliss. The next day at work you all nod and smile at each other like a bunch of miscreants.

It’s worth it except for one thing – that nagging hangover that’s following you around like a dark shadow on a sunny day. Dave looks about the same way you feel and says something to you about a Bloody Mary; apparently it’s the best thing for a hangover. You step out together and go around the corner to a bar and test this theory, but it turns out all that Bloody Mary does is give you tomato breath and make you wish you were somewhere else.

You pass by Angela’s cube on the fifth floor and she looks great – there’s a glimmer in her eye, a skip in her step, and you ask what her secret is. She smiles mischievously, reaches for her desk drawer, and slowly rolls it open to reveal an entire case of something called NoHo: THE HANGOVER DEFENSE. It becomes clear – there just may be a way to avoid hangover pain.

“What is this?” you ask,
“It’s my secret weapon,” she says, “it’s my first drink of the night, and it helps me to avoid hangover feelings.
“How is that possible?” you ask, incredulous.
“You mix a can with your first drink of the night,” she says, suddenly all schoolmarm and advice, “or take a NoHo shot as your first and last drink of the night. It stops ketosis, a biological process that takes place when the liver converts fat into fatty acids…” Your attention drifts and you stare at her, how does she know this stuff? She sees the distant look in your eye and stops. “I majored in biology in college, remember?” You don’t remember, but it’s not important.
“Can I have one?” you ask.
“Absolutely,” she says, and lifts a can out of the stash in her desk drawer.

Next week you go out drinking with Dave and Angela again, only this time you’re prepared, and you know what? Angela was right about NoHo, you successfully avoid hangover pain. You’ll never go back to drinking without it.