The Ginger Shot

It seems like the times that we can least afford to get sick, we get sick.  In September, it was a Wednesday, 3 days before a wedding in which I was highly involved and the day before I was launching a new middle school outreach program at work.  I couldn't afford to get sick, but I had a sore throat, and my entire body ached.  I could tell I had a fever coming on.  I had recently obtained a juicer, so I immediately googled "cold and flu juicing remedies."  I read several recipes, and started to notice a lot of people were recommending ginger, so I picked on of the recipes and went with it.  The recipe was as follows:

1oz fresh ginger juice
A squeeze of lemon
A dash of Cheyenne pepper

It didn't seem too bad, and I was desperate, so I gave it a try.  I was home alone at the time, with just my two dogs to keep me company.  I downed the shot of ginger with the lemon and Cheyenne pepper, expecting a little bit of a kick.  I was not expecting the intensity of the kick that I got.  It burned.  It was the mother of all that burned.  When I could finally speak, the first words out of my mouth, were "Holly balls batman."  No idea what that means, or where that came from, but apparently that's what I say when I am experiencing a burning sensation greater than anything I had thought possible.  It burned for about twenty minutes, and every time I burped it tasted like ginger.  Everything I ate tasted like ginger.  It was miserable.  But when I woke up the next morning, I felt totally fine.  Not just rested, but no fever, no congestion, no aches and pains, no sore throat.  I was totally fine. The program launch was a hit, and I survived the wedding just fine. 

The results were so fascinating, that I told all of my friends and family how amazing it was.  No one came to me begging for a shot of ginger, but one day a friend stopped by who had a terrible hangover.  I really had no sympathy for him, however I did offer him a shot of ginger to help ease the agony he was in.  At this point, I had no idea if the ginger would worsen his situation or help him.  I was just curious to see what would happen.  I convinced him to take it.

Funniest. Thing. Ever.

He curled up in a ball and didn't move for a very long time.  His face was scrunched in a way I had never seen before.  I believe he eventually uttered phrases such as "I hate you...trying to kill me...what did I ever do to you..."  To this day he still says that it didn't help his hangover at all, but it actually took away his headache and soothed his stomach a little. 

Recently however, Nate got a really bad cold, and was desperate to get better, so he could survive going to work the next day.  He asked me to make him a ginger shot.  It might possibly have been one of the happier moments of my life (not really, but I was pretty excited).  I really do have total faith in the ginger shot.  It's also just really entertaining watching people drink it.  I gave Nate the ginger, complete with lemon and Cheyenne pepper, and watched him take it. 

New. Funniest. Thing. Ever.

Contrary to the silent route our friend had taken after consuming the ginger, Nate was much more vocal.  He chose a particular word, and said it very loudly a few times.  Then a few more times.  And then a few more times.  On and off for about twenty minutes, he just kept repeating that same word.  I almost died laughing.  When Nate woke up the next day?  He felt almost 100% better.  He still had a little congestion, but other than that was back to normal.  He was much farther along in his illness than I had been when I took my ginger shot, so that may have had something to do with the speed of the recovery.  Nate was sure to complain about how terrible the ginger was, but two days later, asked me to make another one for him, to give his cold a final kick in the butt.  I took a small shot of it too, just to make sure I wasn't going to get sick.  It wasn't nearly as terrible as I had remembered it being.  Maybe it was that I just wasn't expecting it the first time.

I now tease Nate about being addicted to the shots of ginger.  He'll never admit it, but secretly, he likes them.

We still haven't gotten David to try it.  The ginger shot doesn't even make it onto the scale for the taste test, but I do highly recommend it if you are sick, or feel like you are getting sick.  Just a warning, it burns a little on the way down.