While we’re still talking about travel-related illnesses and the cold remedies and preventatives we believe in (or don’t), I’ve got to chime in about something I discovered a couple of years ago while visiting Toronto in February on a business trip.

I needn’t tell anyone that Toronto in February is very damned cold. Frozen snot on your first inhale cold. Thank god I had The Hat, boy howdy. Being sick in that kind of weather is no fun, and both my boss and I were coming down with some bug and hard. Bad enough on its own, but the purpose of the trip was representational, and we were to be doing an awful lot of fist pumping and carousing on this trip; reading as ill would not serve our purposes.

On the first night in town, my boss stops pretending we’re not sick and just accepts the hard truth of it for both of us. She and I pile into the rental car and head out to the nearest drugstore; she’s got to pick up this stuff called “Buckley’s Mixture”. I’d never heard of it, but as resolute as she is on its necessity, she is also gripped with a kind of semi-amused dread. I don’t understand…but I’m about to learn.

Flash forward to her running back to the car from the store; she piles in, shakes off some chill and produces this big brown bottle from the box. “Awwwww, damn, here we go,” she laughs, removing the cap. She fills the little plastic up that comes with the package, glances at me, notices my curious amusement and says, “…This is the worst tasting shit on earth,” and knocks it back in one gulp.

A full-body shudder. A horrible grimace. A howl of disgust and rage the likes of which you hear in Godzilla movies. I’m thinking she must be a wuss, but then she fills the cup and hands it to me, “your turn, bitch!”

What little I can smell when I bring it to my stuffed-up nose is a world of wrong. You’re not supposed to drink home permanent solution. You’re not supposed to drink hair dye. Ammonia is not for internal use. And from the smell of it, that’s exactly what I’m about to shoot down my throat.

She did it, so can I, so bottom’s-up, and wow, this is the nastiest shit I’ve ever consumed. But as hideous as it tasted, and I embellish this not one jot, the Buckley’s Mixture started working almost instantly—I could feel my ears and nose coming unclogged in the midst of my howl. Who knew that Pine Sol would soothe my sore throat so well, and so quickly? It tastes like the Devil’s own bile, but damned if it doesn’t work and fast.

Over the three days we were there, we killed the bottle, pressed lots of flesh, and returned to the States feeling pretty tip-top. I’ve been a believer in Buckley’s ever since, and there is a bottle of that hideous, wonderful junk in my medicine cabinet right now.

A side note – nobody in their right mind should be visiting Canada in the middle of bitterest winter, but that’s when Canadian Music Week is held, and our record label needed to represent. Despite the subzero temperatures, the local music scene was absolutely thriving—everyone and his amazingingly foxy girlfriend was out, barhopping and dressed beautifully. It was every bit as cool as New York had ever been without any of the jaded or pretentious bullshit. Toronto feels like the bastard child of NYC and Milwaukee; I was impressed as hell and it was this trip that forced me out of my long held anti-Canada stance.