This Cat Had a Three-Day Hangover After Drinking 40 Euros Worth of Wine

Look, you can chug all the pear juice you want, recreate the ancient hangover cures of tenth century Baghdad (anything involving quinces has to be good for you, right?), or just hold out for that hangover-free wine we've all been promised, but there's no getting around the fact that if you drink to level at which comedy Mexican hats and 30 quid Uber rides to your ex-boyfriend's place seem like a good idea, you're going to feel pretty shitty come the AM.

Like death, taxes, and that one weepy girl in the toilets of every provincial nightclub, those who consume alcohol must accept that hangovers are another of life's inevitabilities. Soz, guys.

While common knowledge would suggest that human beings are the only species stupid enough to deliberately intoxicate themselves in such a manner, it seems felines may also be familiar with the ol' dry-mouthed, skull-throbbing regret many of us greet our Saturday mornings with.

As The Local reported this week, in July, six-year-old Turkish Angora cat Aljosha disappeared from his home in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Speaking to German news site Bild, owner Claudia von Büren said: "He would always come home at midday." But on that day, Aljosha didn't come home. There was no sign of him the following day, either.

In a quest to be reunited with her beloved pet, von Büren questioned neighbours and handed out 150 flyers bearing the cat's photo.

Days passed and still no sign of Aljosha until one day, seven weeks later, he returned home looking a little worse for wear.

It seems that Aljosha hadn't strayed far at all but was hiding out in the wine cellar of a house a few doors down from von Büren.

Seemingly unable to leave the wine cellar during those seven weeks, the cat had smashed and licked up the contents of three bottles of wine: a Mosel Saar Ruwer worth 20 Euros, a dry Alfer Burggraf worth 5 Euros, and a 15 Euro 2003 Mosel Riesling.

So that's a total drinks bill of 40 Euros. What's the incomprehensibly multi-syllabled German word for the feeling when a cat has better taste in wine than you?

Unsurprisingly, when von Büren found Aljosha, he had a dangerous level of alcohol in his system and needed to be rushed to the vets.

"He was more dead than alive when I picked him up. We went to the vets straight away, where they diagnosed him with alcohol poisoning," von Büren told Bild.

After being on a drip for three days, Aljosha was allowed home to recover, presumably on the sofa with a large bag of kitty kibble and several episodes of Top Cat.

Aljosha isn't the first feline to let overindulgence get the better of him. Last year, a stray Russian cat smashed $1,000 of fine seafood after sneaking onto the fish counter at Vladivostock airport in the country's far east.

While Aljosha looks set to make a full recovery, he is feeling some repercussions from his seven week bender. The cat apparently no longer drinks water for the fear that it might be white wine.

Give it a day or two, Aljosha, you'll be back on the spritzers again.