Hair of the Dog

"If you're living high on that cheap credit hog

Don't look for a cure from the hair of the dog."

—F. A. Hayek, "Fear the Boom and Bust"

Are you hung over? Did you forget to drink water before bed? Do you wish to avoid the Hideous Hangover Cure? All that is no problem, no problem at all: here's some of whatever it was you drank last night! Your hangover will be over in no time flat!

A classic remedy for the hangover, insofar as it dulls your ability to feel the effects of the hangover. Of course, all it does is delay the hangover by a couple of hours.

The name of the trope is of course traditional: it derives from the (entirely false) superstition that if you were bitten by a dog, you could avoid rabies by applying the hair of the dog that bit you to the wound.

This is Truth in Television, to some degree; as said before, it's not so much a cure as a mask. The best way to go about it is to keep drinking, but drink lots of water as well, to allow your body to rehydrate itself.

Examples of Hair of the Dog include:

Anime

• Misato Katsuragi from Neon Genesis Evangelion always gets piss-drunk after work and drinks literally gallons of beer. When she wakes up next day with a hangover, she alleviates it via Beergasm. How she manages to stave off hangover while on duty is a mystery.

Comic Books

• In an issue of the comic version of ALF, Gordon dreams that he hangglides, landing in Death Valley instead of his intended destination. A bartender offers him "hair of the cat that bit him", which he gratefully accepts. (Only to discover that neither the bartender nor the bar exist, and the drink is sand.)

Film

• Angelina Jolie's character in the film Life Or Something Like It is offered this the morning after having presented a news report blind drunk.
• A Christmas Story On Christmas morning the Old Man is rubbing his head and grimacing as if he has a hangover. Apparently a morning bottle of wine is a Christmas tradition at Ralphie's house. After a glass of wine he is back to his usual self.
• In the film version of The Shining, Jack sits at the bar and asks the (ghost) bartender for "the hair of the dog that bit me".

Literature

• In America (The Book), the RNC schedule has a wake up call at 7:15 am and Hair of the Dog at 7:16 am (followed at 7:25 by "Adulterer Walk Of Shame").
• Appears more than twice in the Sten series, but in Vortex, the eponymous hero is suffering from a Emperor-induced hangover. Kilgour apologizes that they haven't got the "hair of the dog" that bit him, since few outside of the Emperor's inner circle drink the rare and archaic Scotch.
• In All the King's Men, Willie Stark didn't drink until his first campaign for Governor. Then, one night, he drinks for the first time in his life. Suffering from the hangover of his life, Sadie Burke recommends the hair of the dog. He then delivers the speech of his life.
• Discworld has wine made from re-annual grapes (which are planted this year and harvested last year). Because of the temporal paradox, a character finds in Pyramids that re-annual wine gives you the hangover before you've drunk it; he's advised to "have a hair of the dog that's going to bite you".
• Hunter S. Thompson's alter ego Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas claims to drink Bloody Marys in the morning for the "V8 nutritional content." We suspect that it's actually the vodka.
• In Magic's Price, protagonist Vanyel witnesses his two 'escorts' (read:jailers) attempting to sober up with Hideous Hangover Cures, including a little more of what had caused their troubles the night before.

Live Action Television

• Occurs in Jeeves and Wooster a couple of times with Gussie ... leading him to make a few truly awful speeches/mistakes.

Theatre

• In the musical Cabaret there is a scene with Cliff and Sally concocting a Hair of the Dog cocktail that includes a raw egg. When staged, if the audience can see that a real egg is used their response is often loud and visceral.

Video Games

• In The Curse of Monkey Island, some of the 'hair of a dog that bit ya' is part of a hangover cure. Literally. And you'd better have the toothmarks to prove it.

Web Comics

• In the webcomic Two Lumps, Eben suggests this to Snooch. Snooch, being both the dumb one and hungover, misinterprets the expression.
  • And here's the strip.
• Norman in SSDD treats hangovers with Jägermeister, calls it his medicine (though it does taste like cough syrup, as Richard pointed out).
• After waking up in a magical academy after a drunken bender in Wizard School, Graham requests "more alcohol to get rid of this headache."

Western Animation

• In A Bugs Life, two bugs toast each other with "hair of the dog you bit".

Web Original

• The page quote comes from Econ Stories video Fear the Boom and Bust where F.A. Hayek likens the Keynesian model to irresponsible overindulgence. Keynes is hung over in bed at this point after a night of partying and bragging about his approach.

Real Life

• Cocktails in the Corpse Reviver family were originally designed to make the morning after a little less painful.