Slate on cognac & hangovers

Hennessy recently introduced a new cognac, called Beauté du Siècle, whose specs are as over-the-top as its name: Only 100 bottles are being produced, the bottles are all made of Baccarat crystal, each one comes in an ornate mirrored chest apparently fashioned by a team of 10 artists, and the cognac is hand-delivered to buyers by members of the Hennessy board. The cost? $235,000 per bottle.

Still, it's nice to see cognac coming back into focus, particularly in the form of cocktails - both the classic recipes and delicious new inventions:

One of the all-time classic mixed drinks, the sidecar, supposedly invented in Paris during World War I, is composed of cognac, Cointreau, and lemon juice; it is now coming back into fashion, and the mixology phenomenon has also given rise to some new cognac-based drinks. The cognac region recently played host to an International Cognac Summit, during which a group of eminent mixologists invented a drink called "the summit," composed of cognac, lemonade, lime zest, cucumber peel, and fresh ginger.

Meanwhile, on the flip side, Slate also provides a nice "history of the hangover". I personally never experience hangovers, which is why I have become such a professional alcoholic, but others feel the pain a little more sharply:

Edmund Wilson said he once inflicted a hangover on T.S. Eliot. "I gave him bootleg gin," Wilson told a friend about an evening he spent with the poet. "He is so shy that you have to drink with him to talk to him—and we both got into bad condition. The next morning he had an awful hangover and said his joints creaked, and I felt as if I had wantonly broken some rare and exquisite vase. I have felt guilty about it ever since."