Spotlight: Breaking Hangovers

Orlando native’s product gaining more traction.

John Mansour is not a big drinker. The Orlando pharmacist who created B4, a drink designed to protect the body from the negative side effects of drinking alcohol—namely a hangover—says he developed the product with health in mind.

Four years ago, an acquaintance named Dave Larue, an alcohol industry veteran who did a lot of entertaining for work, asked Mansour if he could make him a hangover remedy. Mansour was intrigued.

“He wasn’t a college kid getting hammered. He was a professional having an entertainment amount of drinks, and he wanted to wake up feeling good,” Mansour says of his now-partner at DrinkB4. “I was, just honestly, really curious. Why can we have one drink and be fine, but not five?”

Mansour found that essential nutrients in the body were being depleted as it processed alcohol. He cooked vitamins, antioxidants and herbs in a lab—formerly his dining room—and gave each batch to Larue in Mason jars to drink and pass out to work associates for research.

“It looked like Breaking Bad a little bit,” Mansour says of his home. “Luckily my wife didn’t kill me, but she was little perturbed.”

Research and development lasted two years, and the drink was tested on about 1,000 people.

“We feel very confident that if taken as prescribed, not only will you wake up feeling good the next day, you’re actually protecting your liver, the kidneys, the intestines and the rest of the body because it will process the alcohol out,” Mansour says.

The drink should be consumed within one hour of drinking alcohol, and more than one is recommended for “a big night out.” B4 is not a hangover cure, Mansour says, but rather a protective measure.

B4 launched in ABC Fine Wine & Spirits throughout Florida two years ago and recently in Total Wine & More stores in Florida, California and Texas. Now it’s sold in 15 states and hit Publix Super Markets’ shelves in Florida last month. Mansour estimates they’ve sold 1 million cans. drinkb4.com