The 5 Best Hangover Pills On The Market (2023 Update)

Let’s be honest, hangovers hit much harder as you get older. The days when you could do shots all night and wake up feeling OK are long gone by the time you reach your 30s. And by this stage in life, lying in bed all day waiting for the hangover to pass is not an option.

Contrary to popular belief, dehydration is not the only cause of hangovers. Inflammation, sleep disturbance, and hormonal imbalance all play a part.

So-called hangover pills are designed to aid recovery after drinking by providing your body with nutrients that support metabolism. The theory is that this should have a knock-on effect on the causes of a hangover and ultimately reduce the severity of your symptoms. And there’s research to back it up! (scroll down for more info)

So if you’re looking for something to add to your recovery routine, these top hangover pills might be just the thing you need to add to your arsenal.

How To Pick a Top Hangover Pill

There are only a few things to look out for when it comes to choosing which hangover pill to invest in. It may seem daunting at first, but with a little bit of knowledge, it’s easy to pick out the best hangover pills by simply looking at the labels.

Ingredients

While it’s true the research into hangover recovery pills is limited, a handful of ingredients have been studied with positive results. That’s why picking a hangover pill with these key ingredients may be preferable. They include:

1. Prickly pear
2. DHM
3. Vitamin B3
4. Ginseng

We’ll go over the study results in more detail later, but it’s important to mention now that the studies are small and the impact on hangovers is modest. Nevertheless, the ingredient list is the most important starting point when searching for a top hangover pill.

Quality 

If you look closely at the labels, you’ll notice that some brands use “proprietary blends”. This is where the herbal extracts are mixed together and the actual doses of each ingredient are unknown.

Although there’s nothing wrong with a proprietary blend and they’re a perfectly acceptable way of producing supplements, some people may prefer to know the actual doses of ingredients rather than an estimate.

Manufacturing standards

Manufacturers in the US and Europe must comply with good manufacturing practices (GMP) and also have inspections by regulatory agencies such as the FDA. It’s unusual to come across supplements that are not made in a GMP or FDA-registered facility. But it’s something to be aware of just in case.

With the above in mind, let’s get straight into the best hangover pill brands.

5 Best Hangover Pills Review

1. AFTERDRINK (by OMRE)

Reviews on Amazon (as of 2023): Average 4.4 out of 774 reviews

Directions: Take 3 pills before and another 3 after drinking. Total 6 pills per night out.

Cost per drinking session: Each bottle contains enough for 8 nights out. That works out to $4.38 per drinking session.

AFTERDRINK has been around since 2016 and is one of the best-known hangover pills on the market. It contains all the key ingredients that have been researched in hangover prevention studies such as prickly pear, DHM, and ginseng. They also pride themselves on producing an ultra high-quality supplement without any artificial additives such as magnesium stearate or silicon dioxide. On top of this, AFTERDRINK does not use a proprietary blend and all ingredient doses are fully listed and 3rd party tested to guarantee accuracy. With all this comes a premium price tag that may not be suited to all budgets.

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2. Flyby Recovery Pills

Reviews on Amazon (as of 2023): Average 4.1 out of 7210 reviews

Directions: Take 3 pills before and another 3 after drinking. Total 6 pills per night out.

Cost per drinking session: Each bottle contains enough for 15 nights out. That works out to $2.33 per drinking session.

Flyby is another popular brand that is well-established in the hangover pill niche. At the time of writing, it has over 7200 reviews on Amazon. Flyby also sells a range of electrolyte products to supplement their recovery pills. They also include electrolytes in their hangover pills for added support.

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3. Cheers Restore Pills

Reviews on Amazon (as of 2023): Average 4.2 out of 5775 reviews

Directions: Take 2-4 pills after drinking.

Cost per drinking session: Each bottle contains enough for 12 nights out (depending on whether you decide to take 2, 3, or 4 capsules). That works out to approximately $2.92 per drinking session.

The cheers brand (formerly called Thrive) is probably one of the first hangover pills on the market and has been available on Amazon since 2014. They also appeared on Shark Tank which helped bring hangover pills to people’s awareness. The difference with Cheers is that they really focus on DHM as their key ingredient and it contains a 1200mg dose which is much higher than others. DHM (short for Dihydromyricetin) was studied in rodents and shown to potentially support alcohol metabolism. More recent studies have disputed this claim.

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4. Purple Tree Hangover pills

Reviews on Amazon (as of 2023): Average 4.3 out of 4601 reviews

Directions: Take 2-3 pills before, during OR after drinking.

Cost per drinking session: Depends on the size you buy, but each drinking session works out to approximately $1.25-$2.

Purple tree hangover pills are on the cheaper end of the market but still contain most of the ingredients you find in top products. That’s why it’s the best hangover pill if you are on a budget. The lower price point does mean that the doses of some ingredients may be lower than what you’d find compared to others. But judging by the reviews, purple tree pills are still having a positive impact on hangovers for many customers.

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5. PartySmart (by Himalaya Supplements)

Reviews on Amazon (as of 2023): Average 4.4 out of 3600 reviews

Directions: Take 1 pill after drinking

Cost per drinking session: Each pack contains 10 pills so it works out at $1.79 per night out.

PartySmart pills may win the crown for the first hangover pill on the market having first launched on Amazon in 2012. As a result, they have a strong reputation and solid following. PartySmart is also very different from the other best hangover pills mentioned in this review because you only need to take 1 capsule and the formula is very different. PartySmart pills do not contain ingredients like DHM, prickly pear, or B vitamins. Instead, ingredients such as chicory root and grape extract are used. Despite the fact these ingredients have not been studied for hangovers, lots of people report an improvement in their hangovers if you check out the PartySmart reviews on Amazon.

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Order from their official Website

How to get the most out of hangover pills

Hangover pills are not a magic bullet. You are not going to be able to drink as much as you want and wake up hangover free the next day. That’s just unrealistic because alcohol is a toxin and mitigating its effect on the body is impossible.

The best hangover pills are designed to support liver health by providing it with an antioxidant boost. They may take the edge off hangovers if added to your recovery routine alongside sensible drinking habits. These include:

1. Proper hydration

Alcohol is a diuretic which means it makes you pee out excess water which leads to dehydration if left unchecked. That’s why keeping well hydrated is so important. One of the best ways to do this is to drink a glass of water between each alcoholic drink.

Aside from this, you could also consider pairing your hangover pill with an electrolyte hydration mix. The mix contains a specific ratio of electrolytes and sugar which hydrates faster than water alone. Taking this during or after drinking with your hangover pill is an ideal two-hit combo to tackle recovery from all angles.

2. Avoid darker colored drinks

People say that red wine and whiskey hangovers are the worst. And the science backs this up because darker colored drinks contain a higher concentration of congeners.

Congeners are organic by-products of alcohol fermentation. In simple terms, they are naturally formed when alcohol is produced and aged in barrels. Congeners are responsible for the distinctive flavor and smell of the drinks we love. But unfortunately, they have also been shown in studies to make hangovers much worse.

Congeners are biologically active which means they react with your cells and add to the inflammatory process that is partly responsible for hangovers. Lighter-colored drinks contain fewer congeners and should, in theory, give less of a hangover. Obviously, this depends on how much you drink. You will, of course, still wake up with a bad hangover if you drink too much of any type of alcohol regardless of the congener content.

3. Eat before drinking alcohol

Alcohol starts to absorb into your bloodstream within 90 seconds of your first sip. On an empty stomach, alcohol is absorbed faster compared to when food is present. In essence, alcohol is unimpeded when there’s no food around so blood alcohol concentrations rise faster and peak higher.

And studies have shown that it doesn’t matter what food you eat. Carbohydrates, fat, and protein all slow down how fast alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream. (1)

Drinking on an empty stomach leads to peaks and troughs in blood alcohol concentration which wreaks havoc on your body and results in worse hangovers. That’s why eating before drinking alcohol is a good choice. Most hangover pills recommend a dose before drinking and taking them alongside a meal is an ideal time to get the first dose in.

Who are hangover pills designed for?

In your early 20’s, hangovers are no big deal. Partying all night and waking up in the morning ready to get on with your day was normal. But as we get older, our body’s ability to process alcohol declines. By the time we hit 30, we may start thinking twice before drinking as we dread the next day’s hangover. Aside from this, being hungover is just not an option as we get older and have to deal with work and family commitments.

If you are someone who enjoys a few drinks every now and then but knows you’ll wake up the next day feeling less than 100%, hangover pills may be the ideal thing to add to your recovery routine.

Hangover pills are not designed for those who want to get super drunk and wake up with no hangover the next day. As mentioned before, they are not miracle cures and can only have a modest impact.

Best hangover pill ingredients

In this section, we’ll go over all the most popular ingredients that the best hangover pills use in their formula. It’s important to mention that there isn’t much research into natural hangover remedies. But there are a handful of ingredients that have been studied in trials with interesting results.

Prickly Pear

A double-blind trial in 2004 looked at giving prickly pear 5 hours before drinking vs placebo to 55 test subjects. They found that nausea, dry mouth, and loss of appetite were significantly reduced. They also found that the risk of a severe hangover was reduced by half!

The researchers say that it could be because prickly pear is packed full of antioxidants called polyphenols that can mitigate the inflammatory response to alcohol. That’s why the best hangover pills include this ingredient in their formula. (2)

Dihydromyricetin (DHM)

You may notice that lots of hangover pill brands rave about DHM. The reason is, a couple of studies showed that alcohol metabolism was faster in rats given DHM and alcohol.

With that said, more recent studies have not found the same results and showed no change in alcohol metabolism.(3)

Therefore, despite all the hype around this ingredient, a lot more research needs to be done to see whether it has any impact on hangovers.

Ginseng

Ginseng is one of the few hangover pill ingredients examined in a research study. In this case, 25 men were given 100ml of whiskey with either water or a drink containing ginseng. The ones who took ginseng reported less severe hangover symptoms. (4)

To be fair, this study was unusual by testing male subjects only and could be influenced by bias as the people taking ginseng would know they were drinking it. Nevertheless, ginseng is a promising ingredient and is often included in recovery pills.

B vitamins

There are eight B vitamins and each has a slightly different function. A few of them such as B1, B2, B3, and B6 are heavily involved in metabolism. In other words, they are crucial cofactors for the metabolism of the things we eat and drink. This includes alcohol. Most hangover pills contain B vitamins for this reason.

Milk thistle

Milk thistle is arguably one of the most commonly used dietary supplements for liver health. And there are quite a few studies that have shown its active ingredient, Silymarin, can dampen liver inflammation in certain conditions like fatty liver disease.

Although it hasn’t been studied in hangovers specifically, it’s still used as a key ingredient in recovery supplements because of its liver support benefits.

Ginger

Ginger is a proven natural anti-nausea remedy. It’s been shown in a handful of studies to be effective in ameliorating nausea in post-operative and chemotherapy patients. (5)

Nausea is probably one of the worst symptoms of a hangover and that’s why the best hangover pills include ginger to counteract this.

L-Cysteine

Cysteine is an amino acid that is a precursor to the powerful antioxidant, glutathione. Glutathione is often referred to as the “master antioxidant”. The issue is that glutathione is a large molecule and can’t be easily absorbed into the bloodstream. That’s why cysteine is used instead to boost glutathione levels.

How do they work?

To answer this, we first need to go over the cause of hangovers. Despite what most people think, they are not just caused by dehydration. If that were the case, then drinking a bottle of water before bed would mean you wake up hangover-free. But we all know that doesn’t work.

With that said, dehydration is certainly one cause of a hangover. But there are a few others which include:

• Inflammation: When alcohol is broken down by your liver, it’s converted to acetaldehyde before being converted again to acetic acid. Acetaldehyde is a very toxic substance and your liver can only process it at a limited rate. Drinking over your usual limits means that acetaldehyde levels build up and this triggers an inflammatory process.

 

• Sleep disturbance: Even small amounts of alcohol can massively disrupt your sleep. It’s well known that drinking alcohol can prevent your brain from entering REM sleep. This is the deepest stage of sleep where dreams happen and is essential for memory processing and cognitive restoration.

 

• Mental health: Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant that subdues brain activity. Once you start sobering up, your brain snaps back into action. This is known as the “rebound phenomenon” where brain activity overstimulates. It’s thought that this may be the cause of “hangxiety” which is the non-official term used to describe the anxiety associated with a hangover.

 

• Hormonal imbalance: Your body comes under stress when drinking alcohol which leads to fluctuating levels of cortisol. Aside from this, insulin levels can go out of whack especially if binge drinking which can lead to drops in blood sugar. (6)

You can see that hangovers are caused by a combination of factors and it explains why you may experience so many different symptoms.

Although it’s not a proven science, the theory is that hangover pills contain antioxidants and natural anti-inflammatories that could support your liver deal with the inflammatory reaction caused by acetaldehyde.

But they will have no effect on other aspects of a hangover such as the sleep and nervous system disturbance. That’s why hangover pills are not going to prevent a hangover.

How to take hangover pills

One of the most important things to keep in mind when adding a hangover pill to your recovery regime is the dosing regimen. They are different from other dietary supplements because they are designed to be taken when drinking, rather than daily. The dosing of ingredients is often much higher than you’d find in other supplements so it makes an impact when drinking.

In addition, all of the best hangover pills on the market recommend taking the dose before, during, or straight after drinking. You have to get the timing right because if taken too late, they won’t have any effect.

How to take hangover pills

One of the most important things to keep in mind when adding a hangover pill to your recovery regime is the dosing regimen. They are different from other dietary supplements because they are designed to be taken when drinking, rather than daily.

In addition, all of the best hangover pills on the market recommend taking the dose before and/or after drinking. That’s because the ingredients do not make a difference once you already have a hangover. By the time you’ve woken up with a headache, dry mouth, nausea, and all the other trimmings that come with a hangover – it’s too late.

Remember that hangover pills are designed to enhance your recovery routine, rather than being a “hangover cure”.

Do hangover pills work?

It’s a simple question that doesn’t have a straightforward answer. If by asking “do hangover pills work?” you mean “are they going to 100% prevent me from getting a hangover?” – then no.

On the other hand, if you mean “can hangover pills make my hangovers more bearable?” then yes, it’s a possibility. In the section above, we mentioned some ingredients that have been shown to reduce hangover severity. However, a lot more research needs to be done and it’s far from a proven science at the moment.

The hangover pills mentioned in this article have tens of thousands of positive reviews between them. So, there’s lots of anecdotal evidence that they do potentially make a positive difference.

Are hangover pills better than drinks or patches?

The short answer is, not necessarily. They all contain similar ingredients but with different delivery methods. The main consideration is personal preference and convenience.

The great thing about hangover pills is that they are super easy to take and travel with. Unless you struggle with swallowing capsules, taking a few pills with a glass of water is arguably the easiest delivery method. On top of this, traveling with hangover pills is very convenient because you can place them in your bag without adding any significant weight or taking up too much space.

On the other hand, you may not like the taste of a hangover drink or prefer not to consume more unnecessary calories. Drinks are also less easy to travel with as they take up a lot more space and are obviously heavier. However, if you find it difficult to swallow capsules, hangover drinks may be the most suitable option.

Patches on the other hand are arguably the easiest to travel with but they can cause irritation or reactions for those with sensitive skin. Patches also contain much lower ingredient doses compared to hangover pills and drinks.

What is the best pill for a hangover?

The best hangover pill brands mentioned in this review have ticked all the boxes when it comes to:

• Ingredient selection
• supplement quality
• manufacturing standards
• Brand reputation
• Customer reviews

At the end of the day, it comes down to your personal preference and budget. But all the hangover pill supplements in this article are a great choice.

Where to buy hangover pills

After you’ve chosen which hangover pill to buy, the next most important thing is finding the best deals. Most of the top brands sell on their website and Amazon and the prices often vary.

Commonly, you’ll get big discounts when you buy multi-packs direct from the brand website. Alternatively, there are usually huge seasonal discounts on Prime day and black Friday on Amazon. In summary, the best thing to do is check both the website and Amazon to find yourself the best deals.

Hangover pill FAQ’s

Do hangover pills sober you up?

They definitely do not. As mentioned before, hangover pills are designed to support recovery alongside other responsible drinking habits. They have no effect on how fast alcohol is cleared from your bloodstream.

Time is the only thing that will sober you up. Depending on how many drinks you’ve had, it can take several hours for alcohol to clear from your system.

Do hangover pills work if I’m already hungover?

Unfortunately not. By the time you have a hangover, your body has been battered by alcohol and subsequently acetaldehyde and dehydration.

The only things that help once you’re hungover are painkillers, water, and rest.

Are there side effects?

Side effects are always possible. It’s highly likely that you’ve not been exposed to some of the ingredients in hangover pills before. Therefore, you may have an unknown intolerance or allergy.

With that said, the ingredients in the hangover pills reviewed in this article are all natural without any medicines or stimulants.

Also, it’s important to bear in mind that side effects to excipients are often more common. The next question is usually, what are excipients? These are the inactive ingredients that are used when supplements are manufactured. They are necessary to prevent the machines from clogging up and allow the ingredients to fit into the capsules easier. If you check the labels, you’ll see “other ingredients” below the supplement facts table and might notice, for example, magnesium stearate. The best hangover pills will use plant-based excipients which may cause fewer problems.

Conclusion

There you have our review of the best hangover pills on the market. All the products mentioned here are great choices that may be exactly the boost you need to wake up feeling less discomfort.

With that said, hangover pills are not hangover cures and do not prevent any alcohol-related damage. The best way to prevent a hangover is to reduce your intake.