We all love North Korea for various reasons, mostly because we don’t live there. It’s like the exclusive hot bar whose guestlist we can’t seem to get on, but that’s okay, we’ll just admire it from across the road. And now this mind-blowing news:

A North Korean ginseng liquor can be drunk without fear of hangover, according to an article in the DPRK’s Pyongyang Times.

The article claims the Taedonggang Foodstuff Factory has been improving the drink for years, replacing sugar with scorched, glutinous rice which apparently helps eliminate both bitterness – and hangovers.

“Koryo Liquor, which is made of six-year-old Kaesong Koryo insam [ginseng], known as being highest in medicinal effect, and the scorched rice, is highly appreciated by experts and lovers as it is suave and causes no hangover,” the piece reads.

In August, the Korean Central News Agency published an article claiming North Korea’s Koryo Songgyungwan University was working on improving the quality of Kaesong Koryo Insam Liquor.

An article from 1999 also claimed the insam liquor is “the elixir of life”.

Andray Abrahamian, director of research from Choson Exchange who regularly visits the DPRK, said he hadn’t tried the brand in question, but wasn’t keen on drinking the liquor as a “tasty treat”.

“There are some high quality liquors made in North Korea, though in my experience there is no such thing as hangover-free booze anywhere in the world,” he said.

Should the claims about hangovers prove accurate, the drink would no doubt also prove popular in the South. According to a 2012 World Health Organisation report, South Koreans drink 12.1 litres of alcohol a year, more than any other country in Asia.

But curing hangovers is one of the milder curative properties North Korean media has attributed to ginseng.

Last year DPRK media claimed medical products containing extracts from the plant could cure Mers, Sars and even Aids.

This story first appeared in www.NKnews.org

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