Vodka, No Hangover: Officials Skeptical -- Industry Hopes For Morning-After Cure

WASHINGTON - Maurice Kanbar has a million-dollar idea that he thinks could clear your head and solve the sales problems of an entire industry. Hangover-free vodka.

He claims people who drink his Skyy Vodka aren't likely to get hangovers because he has removed most of the impurities that he thinks causes them. He used to get bad headaches when he drank, but not from Skyy, he says.

But now Kanbar IS getting headaches from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), which is investigating his hangover claims and could force him to scrap his advertising altogether.

The feds are worried that people will be more inclined to abuse alcohol if they think it causes less harm.

But even if Kanbar's marketing ploy ends, the search for a cure for the common hangover is likely to continue as the liquor industry struggles to cope with the changing tastes of younger drinkers.

New research indicates ways to reduce the pain of alcohol use.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University say they have discovered a link between the use of vitamin K and the rate that the body is able to clear alcohol. Lab animals that were given vitamin K were able to metabolize ethanol (the key ingredient in alcoholic beverages) faster, limiting the potency of hangovers and other side effects.

But before you start fantasizing about an evening with hangover-free whiskey, the researchers warn that abuse will almost always lead to an unpleasant morning after, regardless of any cure.

"There can never be hangover-free alcohol," says Dr. Robert Rubin, one of the Johns Hopkins researchers. "You would have to remove all the ethanol, and if you do that it's no longer alcohol."

Dr. Wallace Mandell, a Johns Hopkins University researcher studying alcohol-consumption trends, says health claims are just one way of attracting younger drinkers who seem wary of alcohol's side effects. Other innovations have been a trend toward coloring, flavoring and sugaring drinks, like clear Zima beer and flavored vodkas.

The latest invention is cranberry-flavored vodka, produced by Finlandia. While many traditional vodka drinkers may cringe at the thought, such products are taking over a market dominated by young drinkers looking for a more palatable flavor.

Innovations like flavors and headache reduction are just what some liquor-industry executives think they need to rebound from a dismal sales trend in the past decade and a half.

Hard-liquor sales have dropped steadily since 1981.

Ninety percent of drinkers younger than 30 say they chose beer, followed by 80 percent who chose wine, according to a study by M. Shaken Communications in New York. Only 56 percent drank spirits.

"The younger generations are turning to beer," says Mandell.

"It use to be that people would drink 100 shots of scotch, until they acquired a taste for it," says Vince Murphy, director of marketing for Ready to Drink cocktails, pre-mixed cocktails sold in stores. "But the younger generation of drinkers have to like the taste of a drink right away, or they will try something else."

Young people also are looking for something new, because they associate the traditional liquors with their parents, Murphy says.

"Those were our father's drink," he says. "Younger drinkers are looking for their own identity."

Market trends suggest flavored drinks are opening the door to the original version of the drinks, says Lou Carmellini, a marketer for Smirnoff Vodka products.

But many hard-liquor executives think Kanbar has gone too far with his hangover-free vodka.

A spokesperson for Seagram Co., distributors of Absolut Vodka, say all vodkas are low in impurities and that tests have shown that Skyy has just about the same levels of impurities as the leading vodka brands.

The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, which represents the liquor industry in Washington, has also put pressure on Skyy to change its advertising. In a letter to Kanbar, council president F.A. Meister asks that Kanbar reconsider his advertising because it "may connote that abusive consumption is acceptable behavior."

There is also a fear that Skyy's marketing may push the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to crack down even harder on the marketing of alcohol.

Since CBS's "60 Minutes" aired a segment three years ago on evidence that alcohol consumption helped prevent heart disease, BATF has seen a number of misleading health claims on bottles and in advertising.