Forget that Haitian voodoo trick of sticking 13 black pins in the cork of an offending bottle.

Don’t bother with the Puerto Rican technique of rubbing half a lemon under the “drinking arm.”

And don’t believe that old wives’ tale about a drop of rose oil on the temple boosting blood flow to the brain, thus curing the headache.

Dr. Jack Bailey, of Lawrence, said the best way to alleviate the dry mouth, nausea, dizziness and headache of a New Year’s hangover is simple: hydration.

“If you’ll drink several glasses of water or Gatorade, something along that line, before you go to bed you will have less of a hangover,” Bailey said.

Aspirin washed down with plenty of water on New Year’s Day also can help those who wake up with a pitiful case of the throbbing brain, he added.

Despite the doctor’s warning, many people will refuse to ditch favored hangover remedies based more on personal experience than medical knowledge.

Rick Younger, owner of Rick’s Place, 623 Vt., recommends “Hair of the Dog” therapy.

“What you do is begin drinking heavily again,” Younger said. “After a while, that headache goes right away, and you don’t care about a hangover.”

Hangovers can take all the fun out of the first day of the New Year, even for bar owner Rick Younger.

Che Roth, a bartender at Johnny’s Tavern in North Lawrence, said he preferred what he referred to as the “German” solution. It involves a dash of beer and a thick egg sandwich.

“It’s good actually,” Roth said. “You kill it with grease.”

Cathy Longaker, a 22-year-old Lawrence resident, has her own way of battling the after-jollies.

She calls it the “Two Cs, One V8” antidote, as in Crash in bed, Consume much food at breakfast and gulp a huge glass of the vegetable juice.

“I will sleep, sleep, sleep,” Longaker said. “I’ll get up and eat, eat, eat. Then I’ll wash it down with V8. It’s all that vitamin B.”

Sarah Colteryahn, a Juice Stop assistant manager working the counter Wednesday in the store at 812 Mass., said the smoothie shop offered patrons the “Hangover Blend.”

Beating a hangover (12-30-00) Hungover.net

Some customers add in the “Wellness Blend” and “Vitality Blend” to fortify the body after going cocktail crazy.

She said the chilly drink, which contains white willow bark powder and chamomile, has restorative as well as preventive powers.

“If you drink a smoothie before you go out, it will help you not get a hangover,” Colteryahn said.

There are, of course, many bizarre ideas floating around about curing a hangover.

Here are a few other remedies, according to the Web site www.hungover.net:

• Jog enough to work up a good sweat, lick the sweat and spit it out, thereby removing the alcohol “poison” from the body.
• Eat a paste made by mixing 1 teaspoon of ground swallow’s beak and a teaspoon of myrrh. Wash down with water.
• Kudzu vine or ginger, consumed as tea.

Younger, the barkeep, said the most peculiar hangover cure he’s ever heard involved Jell-O. He said a guy once tried to convince him that someone suffering the why-did-I- do-that flu should eat as much dry Jell-O mix as possible and wash it down with water.

“It’s supposed to gel up inside you and soak up all the booze,” Younger said of the theory, which he didn’t buy.

“I told that kid, ‘Get out of here.'”

Younger, who has been in the bar business since 1988, said there was only one absolute, 100 percent, guaranteed way of dealing with the consequences of excess alcohol.

“The only thing that really, really truly works. It’s time,” he said. “Patience is a virtue.”

As is sobriety.