Westbrook Pegler: ‘My Interest in a Cure for Hangover Is Not Academic’

From Pegler: Angry Man of the Press by Oliver Pilat:

He often wrote about the black horrors of his hangovers. Once he produced a column consisting of a single sentence repeated fifty times: “I will never again mix champagne, whiskey, and gin.”

In the late thirties, a New York distilling company issued some publicity to the effect that hangovers from blended whiskies were less severe than bonded whiskies. Two or three days later, they received a note from Pegler on his New Canaan, Connecticut, stationery reading: “My interest in a prophylaxis or cure for hangover is not academic and information on your marvelous discovery would be gratefully received.” An employee of the company passed the letter to a member of the [Heywood] Broun crowd which enjoyed a laugh at the columnist’s expense.