The Complete Urine Drinkers Cocktail Guide
Are you getting bored with your usual selection of cocktails and beverages? Then why not mix things up with a different ingredient… urine. No, we’re not taking the pee! Urophagia, also known as urine therapy, is the technical name for drinking your own urine to improve your health.
So, here at Plumbworld, we decided to embrace this practice and create the complete urine drinker’s cocktail guide.
How common is urine drinking?
The practice of drinking urine isn’t as rare as you might think.
In a recent ‘Bathroom Habits’ survey carried out by Plumbworld (which was sent to 28,000 previous Plumbworld customers and answered by 4,287 of them), we found that 3.8% of respondents admitted to drinking their own urine on a regular basis. Their reasons for doing so centred on the alleged health benefits associated with the practice.
Urine as an ingredient
Before we get to the details of urine drinking, we thought we’d provide you with an insight into the other ways in which urine is ingested across the world.
Virgin boy wee eggs
Do you like your eggs fried? Perhaps you prefer them scrambled? Why not have them cooked in the urine of young boys? Yes, that’s right, every spring in parts of China urine is collected from prepubescent boys and is subsequently used to boil eggs. It’s a delicacy which is sold for twice the price of a standard boiled egg. Cracking!
Solar energy urine beer
A team of Belgian scientists have created a machine which is capable of turning urine into beer, using the power of the sun. Yes, solar energy urine beer is a real thing!
The scientists, based at Ghent University, have created a system whereby urine is collected in a heated tank which is then passed through a membrane. The result is clean drinking water which is then used to brew beer.
Perhaps this beer’s advertising strapline could be, “From Sewer, to Brewer”?
Urine consumption throughout history
Drinking your own urine isn’t a modern development or a recent health fad. The ancient Indian health system of Ayurveda used the consumption of urine to treat conditions such as asthma, allergies, indigestion, wrinkles and even cancer.
In ancient Rome, the poet Catullus extolled the benefits of urine for making your smile whiter. It is believed that the ammonia contained in urine is responsible for the whitening effect upon teeth.
More recently, the China Urine Therapy Association (which claims more than 1,000 members), claimed that drinking and washing in urine can cure constipation and skin scores. The head of the association, a Mr Bao Yafu, also claimed that drinking urine every day has cured his baldness.
Beyond the realms of Earth, astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) are regularly drinking recycled urine; with one important caveat. American astronauts drink their urine, whilst their Russian colleagues refuse to do so. According to Layne Carter, water subsystem manager for the ISS at Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Centre, “It tastes like bottled water”. For added flavours, the drinking supply on the ISS also contains breath and sweat. Nice.
Back here in the UK, Bex Long and John Dixon appeared on ITV’s This Morning arguing that drinking their own urine had ‘banished symptoms of depression”, as well as “making their eyes brighter and their skin clearer”.
These aren’t the only people to embrace the habit of daily urine consumption. In fact, they’ve got some fairly famous company…
Famous urine drinkers
From athletes to film stars, there’s a whole range of famous faces who imbibe their own urine on a regular basis. Here’s a quick round-up.
Juan Manuel Marquez
Mexican boxer Juan Manuel Marquez admits to drinking his own urine when he’s training for a fight. He believes that his urine contains a lot of proteins and vitamins and that to not drink them again is a waste…
Bear Grylls
Doing it for survival rather than health purposes, Bear Grylls has been known to quaff volumes of his own urine on occasion. In fact, there’s a particularly memorable scene in Man vs Wild in which he stays hydrated by filling his canteen with pee.
Sarah Miles
Best known for her roles in films such as Blowup and Ryan’s Daughter, British actor Sarah Miles drinks a small cup of urine every day. Why? Because she claims that a Californian clinic cured all of her allergies with it.
Morarji Desai
India’s fifth prime minister was a long-time practitioner and advocate of urine therapy. He believed that drinking urine could cure illness. In fact, he believed that drinking urine could be helpful to the millions of Indians who didn’t have access to affordable medical care during his premiership.
Madonna
She may be most well known for selling millions of pop records worldwide. But the famously health conscious star is also known for using her own urine to cure a contagious skin disease. Her unusual medical treatment came to light during a 1993 appearance on the Late Show when she revealed to its host David Letterman that peeing on her feet had cured her athlete’s foot.
JD Salinger
Reclusive literary giant JD Salinger was best known for The Catcher in the Rye and the book’s lead protagonist Holden Caulfield. What’s less well known is that Salinger was a practitioner of urine therapy. Although he never admitted to it himself, it was revealed in Dream Catcher, a memoir written by his daughter Margaret.
Lyoto Machida
Another athlete on this list, Japanese-Brazilian Lyoto Machida is a confirmed urine drinker. Apparently his daily urine habit began when he was unable to shift a persistent cough.
Moises Rojas Alou
Is urine a performance enhancing drug? If American baseball player Moises Rojas Alou’s story is true, then it could well be. The six-time All-Star winner got into the habit of urinating on his hands in order to alleviate callouses. The result is that he can bat without using gloves, supposedly giving him a competitive advantage when he’s out on the field.
Is drinking urine safe?
While many of the famous faces listed above tout the benefits of drinking urine, what does the science say? Is it better than drinking tap water?
It turns out there is no actual scientific evidence that drinking urine has any health benefits. As a result, urine therapy is very much in the alternative medicines category.
In fact, some experts suggest that drinking urine could be detrimental to your health in the long run. This is because urine is a waste product of your body. By drinking it, you are consuming something your body is trying to expel. What’s more, although urine is 95% water, that remaining 5% is made up of excess minerals such as sodium, potassium and chloride.
There’s a reason your body is designed to go to the toilet...
According to Helen Andrews of the British Dietetic Association, urine becomes more concentrated as it's consumed and ‘put back’ in the body. This means drinking urine could damage your gut flora.
In survival situations, drinking urine can be helpful. Urine produced on the first day of being cut off from survival can be a useful source of fluid (see Bear Grylls above). Aron Ralston, a man who survived 127 hours with one of his arms trapped underneath a boulder drank urine after rationing his water for several days. However, if you’ve been stranded in the wilderness for a few days with no water, then it’s not wise to drink your urine as it will have become very concentrated, containing a large amount of salts.
There can, however, be negative health effects from drinking either your own or someone else's urine.
A reader writes in…
With all of the above information in mind, one reader did get in contact to clarify a few points:
“When we talk about the therapeutic and other effects of drinking one’s own urine, we are talking usually about: 1) a rather small quantity generally because it works in a similar way to biofeedback (maybe even like homeopathy) so usually a cup and not a pint… and 2) we are talking about the midstream only. This means that you don’t collect the ‘head’ or ‘tail’ of the stream, only the middle, due to the fact that more impurities may be contained within the first and last parts of the stream. I think that’s an important point which everyone agrees on.”
What does urine taste like?
If you’ve made it this far, you probably have a burning question - what does urine taste like?
The answer’s probably what you’d expect. Urine DOES NOT taste nice. However, habitual urine drinkers tell us that you can get used to the taste after a while.
However, if you want to drink urine without the bad taste, then Plumbworld is here to help. We’ve decided to rectify the problem and help out the UK’s growing number of urine drinkers by creating a series of alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails that will help mask the taste of urine. Keep reading to find out more about our top urine-based cocktails.
Examples of urine cocktails
Urinegasm
If you’re a fan of rich, Baileys-based cocktails, then the Urinegasm is the perfect cocktail for you.
Here’s what you’ll need to whisk one up:
- 15ml almond extract.
- 22ml coffee syrup.
- 22ml Baileys Irish Cream.
- 18ml fresh urine.
- Ice
To mix, simply pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well and then strain into a glass with ice. Add cream if desired and then enjoy!
Golden Shower
After drinking it, you’ll be a fan of the golden shower. It’s the ideal option if you’re looking for a liqueur-based urine-based cocktail.
What does it contain?
- 50ml orange juice.
- 30ml apple juice.
- 50ml fresh urine.
- 15ml Galliano.
- Ice.
Making the Golden Shower is a breeze. Stir all of the ingredients with ice and serve!
Yellow Russian
The ‘Dude’, the main character in the film The Big Lebowski is known for near-continual consumption of White Russian cocktails. But, what if his drink of choice had been a Yellow Russian instead? Well, it would have been a very different film for one thing.
The Yellow Russian is a smooth, creamy cocktail with a refreshing tang of urine.
We feel like this list has been quite boozy so far, so we’ve made the Yellow Russian a non-alcoholic cocktail. Here are the ingredients:
- 37ml fresh urine.
- 25ml coffee syrup.
- 15ml cream.
- 15ml milk.
- Chocolate powder.
- Coffee bean.
- Ice.
To make your Yellow Russian, put all the ingredients (bar the coffee syrup, chocolate powder and coffee bean), into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake for 10-15 seconds. Really let the urine mix with the cream and milk. Once you’ve finished shaking, strain the entire concoction over ice along with the coffee syrup. Sprinkle on the chocolate powder, garnish with the coffee bean and you’re ready to enjoy.
Pee and Tonic
For a lower-calorie option, why not try a Pee and Tonic (or P&T for short)? As with gin, the amount of pee you add very much depends on your personal taste. However, based on the average glass, we’d recommend the following volumes:
- 100ml tonic water.
- 20ml fresh urine.
To enjoy, simply pour your ingredients into a glass and serve with ice.
Buck’s Piss
Buck’s Piss makes for a perfect celebration drink (ideal at Weddings!). Fruity, with the added tang of urine, this is a great cocktail for daytime drinking.
Here are the ingredients:
- 100ml champagne.
- 30ml orange juice.
- 20ml fresh urine.
To prepare, grab a champagne flute and pour in the urine and orange juice. Float the champagne on top using a bar spoon. Then stir lightly. Cheers!
We hope you’ve found our complete urine drinker’s cocktail guide a useful resource.
You can download The Complete Urine Drinker’s Cocktail Guide here
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