Vinepair: The Legend, Myth, and Majesty of the Pickleback

Let’s talk about hangovers.

Hangovers are like 10th grade math. They get more difficult, and then nearly impossible to deal with as we get older. Hangovers in your 30s are no longer a badge of honor from last night’s exploits; they’re a scarlet letter, a not-so-friendly reminder from the universe that you aren’t that young anymore.

Avoiding hangovers becomes a “Good Will Hunting”-type of equation as you age, a rich tapestry of densely competing concerns. Did I eat enough? Will I be okay if I have wine after that cocktail? What time do I have to wake up tomorrow? Nobody needs a shot, Matt.

Whether you are a 22-year-old who feels good as new after a greasy breakfast, or a drinker of a certain age for whom the all-day struggle is real, hangover cures abound. A Google search for “best hangover cure” reveals no fewer than 1.27 million results, ranging from water to herbal supplements to FDA-disapproved substances.

As you squint through the pain, you wonder: Is it B12? Bananas? Raw eggs? Cold-pressed juice? Greasy food? Is it… more booze?

Yes. As both a term and concept, the hair of the dog has been around for a while. John Heywood coined the term in a 1546 six-volume collection of writings titled, “A Dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue, Compacte in a Matter Concernyng Two Maner of Mariages.” If you really feel like impressing no one at all, then go ahead and recite this Heywood ditty the next time a friend has enjoyed too much of the sacrament:

“I pray thee let me and my fellow have
A hair of the dog that bit us last night –
And bitten were we both to the brain aright.
We saw each other drunk in the good ale glass.”

Heywood’s term “hair of the dog” hails from an ancient remedy for rabies. According to extremely questionable science, the cure for a rabid dog bite was once believed to involve putting burned hair of said dog on the wound. I’m not a medical doctor, but I did used to be a lifeguard and strongly do not recommend this.

That said, many believe drinking a Bloody Mary or downing a beer first thing in the morning is the best way to cure what ails you, which, if you think about it, is kind of like treating a third-degree burn with more fire.

Which brings us to the pickleback, or pickle juice paired with a shot of whiskey. If it seems counterintuitive to put more booze into your system after putting too much in the night before, how about consuming booze alongside salty liquid, a known dehydrator? The concept strikes most of us former lifeguard types as an unlikely hangover preventer, yet that’s exactly what pickleback adherents claim.

“Pickle Brine is Why the Polish Don’t Get Hangovers,” Munchies wrote in 2017. “Why Pickle Juice is the Ultimate Hangover Cure, According to Science,” a Notre Dame undergrad posted on Spoon University two years prior.

Most drinking fads, unless they’re something like Four Loko, are based on longstanding traditions. Swigging pickle juice with your booze isn’t anything new. If you’re Russian, it’s practically required.

The pickleback shot became popular in America, however, in 2006, thanks to bartender Reggie Cunningham. The salty solution came to his attention one very hungover day when he was working at lovable Brooklyn dive, Bushwick Country Club.

Documented in what looks to be a found footage YouTube interview, Cunningham says that a woman from Florida with a raspy voice parked herself at his bar and asked for a shot of Old Crow bourbon with a side of pickle juice. Luckily for Cunningham, the now-famous McClure’s Pickles retailer was located just two doors down, and happened to be storing jars in the bar’s basement.

Served alongside a shot, the salty brine seemed to eliminate the taste of the whiskey, which certainly helps if you’re not into whiskey. Cunningham begrudgingly joined his patron for one pickleback shot, and then several more. There in that hazy moment a Brooklyn legend was born.

The pickleback craze exploded, becoming a bartender’s handshake of sorts. It spawned all sorts of salty variations, too. Tequila plus pickled watermelon. Pickled beet juice with vodka. Mezcal alongside pico de gallo juice. And a whole bunch more.

In addition to finding picklebacks delicious, advocates insisted that pickle brine served as a panacea to dehydration; that somehow the combination of water, spices, and cucumbers unlocks secret powers of re-hydration and muscle un-cramping.

The craze spread so far that a company even went as far as monetizing it as a Gatorade-esque sports drink. So the next time you’re parched after a hot day on the gridiron reach for a cold Pickle Juice Sport (picklepower.com).

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But the real question is: Does it work?

And the short answer is: no.

Kevin Miller, PhD, of Central Michigan University, tackled the pickle juice postulation in a 2009 academic paper, “Electrolyte and Plasma Changes After Ingestion of Pickle Juice, Water, and a Common Carbohydrate-Electrolyte Solution.” The question he set out to answer is whether pickle brine (because of its sodium content) could effectively increase plasma electrolytes in a person experiencing exercise-associated muscle cramps. If so, it would make for a useful athletic supplement — and, thus, a helluva hangover cure.

Miller tested blood samples from nine men around the age of 25 (sorry, women) after they ingested small volumes of pickle juice, and determined that there was little to no change in the plasma sodium concentration. Large quantities? That’s a different story for a different study. “Ingesting greater quantities of pickle juice has the potential to increase plasma sodium concentration; however, the effect of such a practice is unknown,” he writes.

Sounds like a challenge.

https://vinepair.com/articles/pickleback-history-hangover-cure/

Vinepair: San Francisco's Best Bartender Finally Has His Own Bar

The sun beams through the windows of The Saratoga, a year-old cocktail bar and restaurant in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. Hosts, cooks, and bartenders buzz about, readying the ship for a busy Friday night. The back bar, which seems to stretch toward the heavens, sparkles in the afternoon light.

Brandon Clements, co-owner of The Saratoga and bar director of the wildly successful and Michelin-starred Bacchus Management properties, is multitasking. You may not have heard of him, but for the last 10 years he’s quietly been creating some of the best cocktails in the Bay Area.

He waxes romantic on the new space. A nationally registered historic landmark, it was one of the first buildings in the Tenderloin rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake. What originally opened as the Elk Hotel eventually rebranded to the Saratoga Hotel sometime after 1907. A hundred years later, before Clements and company took over, the last iteration was as a bodega of sorts.

“We got down to the basement and discovered that there was a completely illegal, completely shitty bar that had been running down there somehow,” Clements says. “There were glowsticks taped to the wall, bottles everywhere. When I saw that I was like ‘oh, this is the spot’.”

He’s come a long way from his first job as a host at a Romano’s Macaroni Grill in Southern California.

“I felt gravitationally pulled toward the bar. I was curious, always asking them questions,” he says.

Then, as metropolitan origin stories go, he moved to the Big City with nothing but $300 in his pocket and a tiny apartment room he shared with a friend. He had a hunger to learn the trade — both figurative and literal. “I remember eating boxes of Rice-A-Roni mailed from my grandma,” he says.

On his first day in the city, he walked into Max’s Opera Cafe with a padded resume and got a job as a singing waiter. Soon after, the powers that be gave him his first shifts behind the bar. He learned the basics from “a grumpy old man”— admittedly without nearly as much technique, flourish, or skull-head bar spoons as one finds today. He eventually moved over to the lightning-fast bar at the perpetually busy Betelnut restaurant. At this defunct former Cow Hollow hotspot, he learned the importance of working hard and fast. That’s when he started playing around with cocktails.

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It takes a certain personality to pull off a waxed moustache, carefully manicured hair with a tie and vest, but Clements is a rare commodity. He is a quintessential barman with a soul from another era.

Clements studied spirits and classic drinks exhaustively and, after a stint at Mecca, working with renowned bartender and mentor Neyah White (Nopa, Redwood Room, Bourbon & Branch), he began to see bartending as less of a stop-gap job and more of something he could parlay into a career.

The Saratoga, though technically under the Bacchus umbrella, is special for Clements as it’s his first solo venture. Seen as a complement to the award-winning food in the other restaurants, cocktails here get center stage and he has more breathing room to experiment. Clements estimates it has over 700 bottles in house. He has a dedicated section for Rare and Forgotten Spirits: offerings of vintage whiskey, Fernet, benedictine and other dusty treats. One particular bottle of chartreuse available to taste dates back to 1870.

Nifty bottles aside, the other integral part of a cocktail is the ice. And where some cocktail bars underestimate its importance, Clements quadrupled down; he uses four different types for service. Every week a gargantuan frozen block is delivered, soon to be chainsawed and manicured into perfectly sized spheres delicately placed into a cocktail or spirit.

As for his latest recipes, there’s something for everyone — and that’s always been the point. “It’s his biggest strength: He can appeal to just about everybody,” Emily Parian, head bartender and colleague for more than seven years, says. “It’s not like one cocktail misses and three are great — it’s consistent. And there’s no pretense.”

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A lot has changed since he moved to San Francisco in the dot-com boom of the late ’90s.

With what seems like a cocktail bar on every corner, the odds of getting a decent drink nowadays are higher than they’ve ever been. But Clements knows, even with the vintage bottles, handsome garnishes, and the occasional burst of flame, that the bells and whistles are small pieces of a much bigger picture.

Hospitality and guest experience is key, and the bars he runs are ones where everyone is welcome, where everyone will find something they like, and where everyone leaves happy. Word travels fast these days and a more educated drinking public has a lower threshold of nonsense to tolerate. They want the whole package, not just the drink.

“You’ve got a much higher level of expertise from the guests because they go to all these cocktail bars now, which is great,” he says. “What I’m looking to do is stay hospitality-focused, push myself to create interesting drinks that actually taste good and never put style in front of substance.”

It’s why his bar seats are always full and why his team members are a diverse, focused, and dedicated group who push themselves. Parian, a former sommelier, weighs in: “As for bartending, he taught me how. The standard he sets is very, very high and consistent and that for me has been a great learning experience.” And Clements is there to give it to them.

Parian heads to the downstairs bar as there’s more work to do before showtime. Clements’ phone buzzes to life. Duty calls. In a few short hours, thirsty patrons will belly-up and the once-quiet space on Larkin Street will come alive with the Friday night symphony. A shot of green chartreuse appears next to my notebook. He’s done it again: another happy customer.