is it somehow better if you drink just one type of drink (ie beer) at a social gathering , rather than a lot of different ones?
will that make you more likely to get sick?
Chief’s Domain - http://www.seas.ucla.edu/~ravi
This is something you must learn the hard way :).
Arjuna34
I’ve often heard the “Don’t mix your alcohols” warning. While there’ve been situations where I felt nauseated after drinking beer and liquor, I’ve also felt the same way drinking just one kind of drink.
I think the basic cause is this: if you sample several different kinds of drinks, you’re drinking too much.
What would Brian Boitano do / If he was here right now /
He’d make a plan and he’d follow through / That’s what Brian Boitano would do.
Its like abox of chocolates, you never know what youre going to get.
I’ve never run into a problem with this. Of course, I’ve only been hung over once in my life.
Usually, I only have one or two drinks when I’m drinking – I like to compare beers, for example. However, when I’m in high gear (“drink until I’ve had more than enough”) I do the “Tubthumping” thing (He drinks a whiskey drink/he drinks a vodka drink/he drinks a lager drink/he drinks a cider drink) and experience no ill effects beyond simple joyful drunkenness.
My guess is that the prohibition against mixing your liquors is really just to keep you from drinking too much. Either that, or maybe there really is a bad interaction of some of the non-alcoholic contents of the various firewaters.
–Da Cap’n
“Playin’ solitaire 'til dawn
With a deck of fifty-one.”
Here’s the straight dope on hangovers from our lord and master.
I’ve always lived by the practice of never mixing browns and clears. And never mixing anything with gasoline.
Then we’ll turn our tommy guns
on the screaming ravaged nuns
and the peoples voice will be the only sound.
-P. Sky
Generally I’d have to agree with the rest here, it’s not so much that different drinks are going to interact badly, but just that you’ll probably end up drinking too much that way. If you stick with one type, say beer in this case, it’s pretty easy to tell how much you’ve had, but if you keep switching around it becomes a lot more dificult. (compare “all right, i’ve had 10 beers, time to quit” with “all right, I had a martini, then a glass of wine, then two tequila shots, then…(etc etc)”
Then theres also the “beer then liquor, never sicker. Liquor then beer, you’re in the clear” syndrom to take into account…(ie, after a bit of drinking you get into a rhythm, and switching to something stronger doesn’t necessarily slow that rhythm-resulting a bit more alcohol than you had anticipated.)
Let’s see, the other night I had a Snakebite (light and fruity, and strong), followed by Sex on the Beach (no, the alcohol, not sex, sigh), followed by a white russian. It’s a good thing I stopped experimenting by that point because I got pretty drunk (maybe fice shots in totum, you think?). Of course, nothing but the snakebite tasted strong.
Well, that’s just my most recent drinking story (oh, and I prefer quality to mere quantity).
I sold my soul to Satan for a dollar. I got it in the mail.
I agree with Uncle Cece. As he said (paraphrasing) “There’s no evidence mixing your liquors will make your hangovers worse.” I imagine, however, that there’s a difference between the alcohol content in five beers or in five whiskies straight (normally poured very exactly, especially in England) than in a rum and coke, a vodka Collins, a brandy and soda, a champagne cocktail, and a tequila wallbanger. (The pour is Spain is extremely generous) I bet the latter adds up to a hell of a hangover simply because of the amount of alcohol consumed.
A normal weekend evening out in Barcelona includes a beer before eating, 1/4 liter of wine with the meal (you order another, it’s 1/2 liter and the alcohol adds up), a glass of Catalan champagne with dessert, and then a small shot of brandy or rum in your coffee. Then you leave the restaurant, go somewhere else, and order a drink (usually beer). This whole process takes about three or four hours and you have a large meal in the middle. It is not conducive to hangovers unless you overdo it…say, guzzling a whole liter of wine at dinner or extending the one post-prandial drink into five. Then you’ve got a hangover, and you got it from just drinking too much, not from drinking a little from several sources.
POSTULATE: The worse the hangover, the higher the amount of alcohol consumed, no matter what type. You drink 16 Schlitzs, hangover city. You drink 1/2 liter of Glenfiddich, hangover city. You drink 8 Schlitzs and 1/4 liter of Glenfiddich, hangover city. Throw in one glass of brandy and it’ll only make the hangover worse by the alcohol in the brandy, and for no other reason.
–Lawrence–one who knows
The difference is… the meal. I don’t claim to know the specifics, but having something to eat (of substance, the pretzels likely don’t count) makes a HUGE difference. Mixing alcoholic beverages is not really a problem. I’m reminded of a Winston Churchill quote that I’ll paraphrase as, “The only trouble with the Americans is that they stop drinking after dinner!”
If you must function the next day, keep in mind that you must feed. You absorb and process the same amount of alcohol with or without the food, but somehow it all goes down more easily if you EAT!
I’ve found that if you stay clear of very sweet drinks(sloe gin etc )it doesn’t make a lot of difference. The most important thing is how much your system is accustomed to. I know people that drink lots that act the same no matter what they drink. They probably are never sober but they never drink girlish drinks. I never developed a taste for tequila tho.I also never chugged drinks. that is just a preppy college thing. I’m an old bartender in a college town
Don’t ever give a drunk coffee Nobody likes a wideawake Drunk 