They are called drinkwel.  I hate that it’s missing the final ‘l’ and doesn’t start with a proper capital letter, but assuming you can get over all that, you will learn that these pills have been concocted by two Berkeley graduates alongside a doctor and a naturopath: I love the idea of students from a world renowned university applying themselves to do good. In this case, coming up with a hangover cure that actually works. A service to humanity.

I have been road testing them for about four months now, on numerous friends as well as on myself; if you come for dinner at my house, where we drink wine, I will most likely whip them out before you leave and offer you one. When we were skiing and had one particularly heavy night, I remember people washing them down with vodka chasers (not ideal – they are best taken with water). The result? The next morning everyone was on the slopes by 9am. Seriously. Well, everyone who took them. One person didn’t and he was out of action all day.

But is it all in the mind? Initially I did think so, but I have tested this out so many times that I have really come to believe in my vial of slightly strange-smelling pills.

Would something else work just as well? Yes it might, but after a few drinks I am never in the right frame of mind to down four pints of water before I go to sleep or make myself a Berocca – and anyway, in all likelihood I would probably have dozed off before it has dissolved and is ready to drink.

So, what’s in them? These little pills of wonderment are packed with high doses of vitamins and herbs including vitamin B, C and milk thistle.  Their creators are the only chaps out there who thought about putting all these nutrients, and more, in a single pill that gives back everything alcohol takes away.

You are supposed to take them daily, whether or not you’ve had anything to drink, as a sort of multivitamin.  The idea is that you then double your dose if you’ve had a particularly large glass of wine. But I am Scottish and horribly mean which translates as only taking them in an emergency. And they do seem to work, even without the daily build up of vitamins in your body. There’s an argument there to say that, maybe, if I actually followed the instructions, they’d work even better.

Drinkwel is available here from the online Singapore healthstore My Life Inc.  They are priced at S$60 for 90 capsules.

My Drinkwel tablets were courtesy of My Life