Jagerbombs

Doctor warns of medical risk from Jagerbombs

Image: Leigh Harries via Flickr

ONE OF IRELAND’S leading emergency medical consultants has warned young people of the dangers of consuming the ‘Jagerbomb’ cocktail, after sales of the Jagermeister spirit rocketed at Christmas.

The Irish Sun today reports that sales of the German-made digestif spirit increased by 17 per cent last year – with a 33 per cent year-on-year increase in sales for the busy Christmas period.

But despite the price of the drink – which can reach up to €15 in some bars and nightclubs – the Jagerbomb cocktail, where a shot of the spirit is dropped into a half-glass of Red Bull and drank in one go.

Dr Chris Luke, a consultant in emergency medicine at the Mercy University Hospital in Cork, has warned that the drink poses a major risk to the health of revellers who order it regularly.

“If it fuels anything, it is the overcrowding on our emergency department corridors,” he told the Sun’s Michael Doyle.

The danger of the drink, he added, was that the addition of energy drinks diluted down the effects of the alcohol and meant people were begin to drink well past the limits their bodies could tolerate.

The overconsumption of the cocktail, he added, would result in massive calorie consumption given the quantities of energy drink being taken on board, as well as violent behaviour and unplanned sex.

Many bars in Australia have already begun refusing to serve the drink, after finding that regular drinkers were more likely to exhibit violent behaviour.