North Korea never ceases to amaze.
The Hermit Kingdom made waves again on Tuesday after state-run news publisher Pyongyang Times wrote that the Taedonggang Foodstuff Factory had invented a hangover-free liquor after years of research.
The outlet said the new Koryo Liquor is made with ginseng, a plant extract with many medicinal qualities, and glutinous rice instead of sugar. By removing sugar from the concoction, the researchers made the drink hangover-free, supposedly.
The liquor purportedly has an alcoholic content of between 30 to 40 percent. Beer, on the other hand, has an alcoholic content of 3 to 10 percent.
The drink has already been recorded as a "national scientific and technological hit," according to the Pyongyang Times. In a romantic turn of phrase, the state-owned outlet also said the drink was "highly appreciated by experts and lovers" for its "suave" nature.
Many North Koreans have a penchant for liquor, defector Je Son Lee wrote last December in a post for North Korea News, a site dedicated to news from the secluded country. Beer was even considered "a soft drink" in her town, she added.
The country reportedly brews two types of liquor: "No. 1," which is made exclusively for Kim Jong Un, and "No. 2," for everyone else in the country, according to Lee. This claim has not been confirmed, however, and it is typically difficult to verify any information out of the Hermit Kingdom. The Pyongyang Times report also did not mention whether the Koryo Liquor was "No. 1" or "No. 2."
The invention of hangover-free alcohol adds to a long string of dubious scientific claims -- ranging from the optimistic to downright threatening -- that have come out of the Hermit Kingdom. Last June, North Korea said it had developed a ginseng-based drug that could prevent and cure MERS, Ebola, SARS and AIDS.
Earlier this month, the country also alleged to have successfully tested a deadly hydrogen nuclear bomb, a weapon able to wreak about 80 times more damage than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, which killed and wounded more than 130,000 people.
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