The Star Trek universe boasted many advances over 20th Century Earth. Some things such as the Communicators have pretty much come to pass given the advent of cell phones. Other things such as the transporters would be damned handy, but still seem to violate those pesky laws of physics. Somewhere in between is Synthehol.

According to Memory Alpha, the online encyclopedia of all things Trekkie, synthehol is:

…a chemical variant of alcohol. It appears to have the same taste and smell as “real” alcohol to most individuals, but none of the deleterious effects associated with alcohol for most humanoids, such as debilitating intoxication, addiction, and alcohol poisoning. Most humanoids have an enzyme which breaks down the alcohol-like compounds in synthehol.

Recently, Professor David Nutt of the Imperial College London created a synthetic alcohol substitute which seems to have most of the properties of Synthehol. You can still attain a light buzz, but no more than that. No matter how much you imbibed, you couldn’t be too drunk to drive, have to worry about bed spins or “driving the porcelain bus”, or those nasty morning after symptoms that cause you to make promises you never intend to keep.

Science marches forward. Now if they could just come up with a calorie free chicken wing…