Hangover Help From Some Strange, Sick Sources

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Wireless Flash) -- If you ring in the New Year with a horrible hangover, forget the Bloody Mary and suck down a swallow's beak instead.

Russian czar Peter the Great has inspired a hangover cure called the 'Royal Peter,' an unsettling mixture of brandy spiced with lots of pepper.

Rollin Riggs is a Memphis-based hangover historian and publisher of "The Hangover Handbook: 101 Cures for Humanity's Oldest Malady" (Mustang Publishing), who says that knocking back swallows' beaks mixed with bitter myrrh was the way ancient Assyrians dealt with their post-partying pukey problems.

Other strange, unsettling solutions include the "Royal Peter," which is named after Russian leader Peter the Great. It's a mouth-worrying mixture of warm brandy spiced with lots of pepper.

-- A raw egg seasoned with salt, vinegar, and cayenne pepper helps Australians ease their day-after-drinking dilemma.

-- A cure from the Middle Ages, which might make your stomach swim upstream, is a combination of bitter almonds and a raw eel.

-- Citizens of Mongolia eat pickled sheep's eyes floating in tomato broth to clear their heads.

-- Puerto Ricans will rub half a lemon under their armpit while Haitians will use a little voodoo: They stick 13 black-headed pins into the cork or cap of the bottle that got them blasted.

-- In the days of the wild west, cowboys would "cure" their hangovers by drinking tea made out of dried rabbit droppings.

-- During the 19th century, chimney sweeps got rid of their morning-after shakes by drinking warm milk flavored with a dash of soot.

But in the end, Riggs says there's no real proven cure for a hangover, and your best bet is to follow three simple rules.

He says, "Drink a big glass of water, take a few Advil, and put plastic sheets on the bed."