Not really. In fact MD 20/20 doesn’t even come in the 20% version anymore. If you want something strong and nasty in the states, some versions of Cisco top out at 19.5%.
Other than tannins in red wines, to which some people are allergic or metabolize poorly, could you throw out a cite for anything except ethanol being responsible for hangovers?
As it was explained to me, a normal liver function is to process the small amount of methanol and other toxins created by metabolism. When ethanol is introduced, the liver switches to processing it as the greater toxin. The entire time it’s in ethanol-processing mode, the other toxins accumulate. If they accumulate long enough, it makes the person sick. But it’s still 100% ethanol’s fault, not other (nominally edible/digestible) substances in the drink.
Put another way, no usual alcoholic drink would affect us if the ethanol were removed, and no combination of ingredients truly makes the ethanol effects worse. The only thing that varies is the rate of ingestion, which can depend on the dilution/strength of the drinks. Reliable cite to the contrary?
I liken posts like those to posts about bacon. If you judged by posts on Facebook you would think that everyone is eating bacon all day. Most people don’t eat much, if any, bacon in the average week and most don’t drink as much wine as their Facebook posts would have you believe.
In real life, you don’t get a pass if you’re drunk off your ass on wine. A drunk is a drunk and nobody cares whether they’re drunk on beer, wine, or hard liquor.
Congeners. The studies are many and pretty conclusive. (The second link is to the most recent study I am aware of. The first link is to a news article on said study.)
Okay, I’d forgotten about those. So if we drank alcohol-free congener cocktails, we’d get hangovers?
We’d get some ill feelings, but most of the ill effects are from the alcohol. Just not all of them. The darker the booze the worse the after-effect. Sweet drinks also amp up the bad effects. For the least impact, drink good vodka neat and chase with plenty of water and a mega-vitamin.
Also, one “serving” of wine has roughly the same amount of alcohol as a “serving” of beer. Generally 4 oz vs 12 oz.
The drinking equivalent of veganism, IMHO, adding up to “why bother?” 
Well, we’ve established that vitamins are completely, absolutely useless, but absolutely on the water - again, as it was explained to me long ago, the ethanol reaction uses a lot of H20, and unless you drink the kind of extra you would during exercise, you will end up dehydrated and that much sicker-feeling. Even when drinking beer or light mixed drinks, extra water will go a long ways towards forestalling hangover effects.
The mega-vitamin is essential to take after every odd-numbered drink. Not for the actual vitamins, but for the reminder that you need to keep drinking water between cocktails. Alcohol is a diuretic. If you don’t replace all the water you pee away, you get dehydrated. This is the primary cause of the hangover headache as I understand it, along with all the associated fatigue.
Thanks, I was going to have to plead personal experience. I have imbibed many a spirit to excess, and wine hangovers were a near second to champagne for severity. Do not miss!
De nada. When it comes to booze and effects, I too have copious life experience. 
Champagne seems to be one of those that gets a lot of its impact from the bubbles. The alcohol hits quicker and you tend to drink it faster, leading to over-indulgence quicker.
Along with the overstatement of the alcohol of wine as pointed out, I do believe you are understating that of beer, while 5% does exist (and if we ignore 3.2 beer) it is at the low end. I think if you run the numbers again a 6 pack will be able the same as a bottle of wine.
Also the ‘double’ is 2 drinks, a 6 pack is 6 drinks, so again these don’t really belong together, you would need 3 doubles to be the equivalent of a six’er.
Without doing the math I do believe all these number will work out to about the same, as the old saying goes a drink is a drink is a drink.
I think 5% is a pretty fair median value. Certainly, heavier craft beers run well into 6% and more and specialty brews can go to 8 or 9 (and like 3.2, we’ll leave out the double-fermentation 12-18% brews), but if we factor in the factory brews heavy drinkers are likely to chug… I’ll put my money on 5% as a good average.
A double is one drink with double the liquor. I wasn’t trying to set up a scientific sampling, but show the relative amount in common drink sizes and types.
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Without doing the math I do believe all these number will work out to about the same, as the old saying goes a drink is a drink is a drink.
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Wouldn’t argue; that’s what the corrected-by-committee numbers pretty much show. Every drink represents around 1.5-2 ounces of ethanol and more depends on the total and the dilution than anything else. Allee samee, a whole bottle of wine is a significant amount of alcohol - probably more than most drinkers think.
In Australia a bottle of wine contains 7 or 8 standard drinks (10gms of alcohol). The usual way of knowing you are OK to drive is, two standard drinks in the first hour then one standard drink per hour after that. Based on the premise that, for the average male, one drink will raise your blood alcohol .02 and each hour your metabolism will lower it by .02, this is pretty easy to see. However misjudging the strength of wine, thinking that one glass = one drink is so common that a picture of a standard 100ml drink is on the side of lots of cartons.
With a standard drink in America having nothing to do with your hourly capacity to metabolize it what is the magic avoid DUI formula there?
Speak for yourself, Bucko!
There’s a standard drink size, based on alcohol content. See this NIH page.
Doesn’t mean that’s what a bartender is required to pour you, or that you pour for yourself at home.