At a Mexican resort, getting hammered in the name of wellness

While getting hammered in Mexico is the start of many a bad drinking story, at the resort Rancho Pescadero, it’s a path to wellness. 

The four-year-old resort in Baha California Sur, Mexico is set to complete a four-year renovation process, reports Bloomberg, and while some wellness retreats focus on cleanses and other purifying rituals, this one goes the opposite way.

“When I talk about wellness, I don’t talk about deprivation or hard work,” says Lisa Harper, the founder of the resort. “I talk about it in terms of experiences that provide that much-needed mental and creative reset.”

Part of that takes place in the establishment’s 25,000-square-foot “wellness pavilion,” where guests learn about indigenous ingredients and traditions, medicinal herbs, and yes, the culinary cures for hangovers. 

After tying one on at the resort’s open bar, they’ll learn how one makes the ancient hangover cure dish known as cochinita pibil, a painstakingly prepared meal that can take their next-day pain away. 

Guests will also be taught to use herbs to make potions that have that same effect — so that the next morning, they can put them to use.

“We’ll wake guests up at a considerate hour, somewhere post-nine o’clock,” Harper explains. “We’ll kindly come to their room with the very first phase of their cure, which will be one of the tinctures…or something that would help them rise to the occasion.”

After they get back on their feet, guests are escorted to an unveiling of the pibil they helped prepare, which, as tradition holds, can alleviate the after-effects of the night of bending the elbow. 

“The bartender is like our hotel doctor, they know just what to serve to make you feel better and not worse,” Harper says.