Many thanks to all who e-mailed in with toothache remedies. I now have a sheaf of enthusiastic testimonials for stuff I had never even heard of a week ago—Grapefruit Seed Extract, for example. However, I’ve isolated the pain to one tooth and that tooth will die. My dental policy is paleorealist. My dentist gets a call at 9 a.m. for a root canal appointment a.s.a.p.
I don’t know what the dental profession would have to say about this, but easily the commonest toothache-remedy recommendation was for bourbon. Many readers named a brand, with Knob Creek way out in the lead. Trusting to my readers, whose collective sapience has stood me in good stead in many past crises, I went out and bought a bottle of the stuff.
What nobody told me was, how to drink it? What’s the right way to drink bourbon? I suspect the answer is the same as the one you get from single-malt enthusiasts: “Just drink it!” (I actually drink my Glenmorangie half-and-half with water. This is a Koran-in-the-toilet-scale outrage to single-malt fundamentalists, but for heaven’s sake, the stuff is forty dollars a bottle.) All advice gratefully received.