If you Google search for the top 10, 20, 30, or 100 hangover cures, you will never find cigars anywhere close to that list. What you will find are liquids, vitamins, more alcohol (hair of the dog), carbohydrates, over-the-counter medicine, Pedialyte, coffee, and many others. Cigars? Nope. When you’re hungover, your body is begging for liquids for a return to normal. The nicotine in cigars dehydrates you. Instead of helping you, cigars are going to worsen your symptoms.
The best hangover cure is to not drink any alcohol. Yet, there will be times when that’s difficult to avoid. Here’s why you should never smoke a cigar while rocking a hangover.
Cigars Worsen Your Hangover Symptoms
With a quick visit to the Mayo Clinic website, you’ll find that a hangover starts when your blood alcohol level drops to zero after a night of drinking. At this point, you will start feeling the common symptoms such as an awful headache and nausea. Other symptoms include fatigue, weakness, muscle aches, stomach pain, shakes, rapid heartbeat, and irritability.
You get all these hangover symptoms because your body is trying to return to normal. These same symptoms worsen when you smoke a cigar. The nicotine from the cigar causes your blood vessels to constrict. And decreased blood flow to your brain worsens your headache and amplifies your nausea.
Hangovers Ruin Your Cigar and Experience
If there’s one thing to add to our recent article, “Four Things That Ruin Your Cigar Experience,” that’s a hangover. With a hangover, you already feel like crap. You think, perhaps a cigar will help you relax. You get some coffee ready and light up a Padrón you picked up the day before. A couple of minutes go by and you slowly take in the smoke. Suddenly, your head starts spinning. Your headache worsens and your mouth gets super dry. You put the cigar out and decide to lay down to recover.
Does that sound like a relaxing cigar experience? No, and it’s going to happen every time you smoke with a hangover. You’re not going to be in a mood to sit back, take in the cigar, and let your thoughts go away. Instead, your mind is going to be on the hangover and how you wish you didn’t chase Jack Daniel’s with a Corona Light.
Even worse, the cigar will go to waste. Re-lighting a smoked cigar at a later time is a big no-no because the cigar won’t taste and smell the same. The flavors and aroma taste like tar on the second go. As a matter of fact, never let a cigar go unfinished. So, don’t smoke if you’re hungover.
Cigar Lifestyle Outliers
All that said, there are many, – a whole, hell of a lot of – smokers in the lifestyle who smoke after a heavy night of drinking. Just walk into a cigar lounge on a Saturday or Sunday morning. You’ll find a handful of smokers smoking their hangover away. These experienced smokers know their bodies better than their own doctors. They almost always have a cigar-hangover-ritual allowing them to relax and enjoy their cigar. It’s as simple as smoking a mild Romeo Y Julieta with bottled water on the side.
If you’re new to the lifestyle, it’s probably better for you to follow the traditional hangover cures. Smoking can hit you hard if you’re not 100% certain. The sooner you’re back to normal, the sooner you can enjoy a cigar without worrying about wasting it.
Photo Credit: Thom Masat