After yesterday’s New Year celebrations, you might well be nursing a sore head this morning after a few drinks too many. This is a chemical consequence of consuming alcoholic beverages, but it’s one that, surprisingly, we still don’t fully understand. There are, however, a number of chemical suspects that have been identified as contributing to the symptoms of a hangover; here, we take a look at each in turn and the evidence for their contribution.
For the latest in the alcohol chemistry series, we’re looking at a pirate’s favourite spirit: rum. It’s actually hard to describe what constitutes a rum, because there’s not really a fixed definition; different countries have different standards that rums have to meet. Still, despite the differences in types, there’s still a lot of chemistry in common.