Beer vs. Wine vs. Booze

Factual Questions
1

Y’all, I assume, have seen the ads that show that one can of beer=one glass of wine=one shot of whiskey. experience though tells me that six shots of liquor will kick me much harder. But when I drink I drink beer and when I have had shots of liquor I still drink my beer. THe closest experiences I had were drinking games in college.

If I drink 6 beers with the guys over a 3 hour period, how would a timed drinking of wine or hard liquor compare.
I mayu experiment, but I really prefer beer.
Let me hear from wine and booze drinkers.

2

It’s been many a moon since my drinkin’ days and this may not mean anything, but when I drank beer I was usually eating something (i.e. popcorn, pretzels, chips). When I drank whisky, I didn’t eat anything.

3

ok, I don’t know how it is in america, but here in australia it’s the law to have the number of standard drinks an alcoholic drink contains printed on the can/bottle. 1 standard drink is the amount of alcohol that the average person can process in 1 hour.

my maths goes as follows - remember, this is based on the australian system of measurements and the 4 schooners and 1 tinnie I’ve already ingested this evening…

Now, 1 can of full strength beer is roughly 4-7% alcohol and has 1.2 - 2.0 standard drinks (1.4 is by far the most common)

1 glass of wine (100mls-ish)has only 1 standard drink, as does 1 nip (30ml) of spirits (scotch, vodka, burbon, etc). On to your question…

1 six pack of beer (6 x 375ml tinnies/stubbies - 2.25litres - I’m sorry, but someone else will have to work out the imperial measurements) contains approximately 8.5 standard drinks. at the end of 3 hours you would have just over 5 left in you.

The equivilent number of std. dks. in wine is about 850mls. If you drank the equivilent VOLUME of wine, you would have had over 22 standard drinks - more than enough to get you pissed well into the next day. After 5 hours you will still have 14 drinks left in you.

Spirits is 1 std dnk per 30 mls (I think that’s about 1 fld onz). The equivilent number of burbons (or whatever) is about 255 mls (not including a mixer, eg coke). the equivilent VOLUME is not recommended, as it’s enough to kill you at a whopping 75 std dnks - that’ll get you shitfaced well into next week. If not the next life. After 3 hours you’ll either have had your stomach pumped and be on a saline drip, or you’ll have had your last rites.

<anecdote>About 2 years above me at high school school, a guy at a party decided to be intelligent and skoll (drink as quick as possible) a 750ml bottle of Jim Beam. He was clinically dead for a full 3 minutes before the paramedics revived him.</anecdote>

Now, there is always a personal factor involved. For example, red wine doesn’t have much of an effect on me (the two High Distinctions I have recieved at uni were written after drinking a bottle of quality Australian red), but a few glasses of white and I’m out for the count. Beer and coloured spirits (scotch, burbon) are about the same for me, but clear spirits (vodka, gin) get me rat-arsed. With the exception of Ouzo, but that’s just my greek heratige shining through :wink:

I think that that’s answered your question. give us a buzz if you need to know more about alcohol. I hope that you understand metric, or else I’ve wasted quite a bit of time.

Nick

4

that should of course be “after 3 hours you would still have 19 drinks left in you”

Nick

5

[Moderator Hat ON]

This seems to be more of a General Question than a Great Debate; maybe we can actually get some scientific evidence re metabolizing beer v. spirits. Anyway, I think I’ll let the GQer’s take a shot at this.

[Moderator Hat OFF]

6

Many years of drinking and reading various articles discussing things like this have taught me a few things

The type, size and what you have it with are the main factors with drinks.

  1. Fizzy drinks get you drunk faster. The reason champagne is the most most popular leg-opener is becasue it has a high alcohol content and lots of bubbles. The CO2 speeds up the absorption of alcohol into the system, can’t give scientific reason, it just does. If you drink your whisky with coke, this makes it work faster. Beer has this, but to a lesser extent, larger drink, lower alcohol content, less fizzy than coke or champagne. Beer also has a lot more water in it.

  2. Speed is a huge factor. You drink fast - you get drunk quicker and worse. Drinking a beer takes longer than a shot or even a mixed spirit. Your body gets longer to metabolise the alcohol as it comes in. You can metabolise (break down, get rid of) about 1 standard drink per hour. 1 standard drink contains 10 grams (approx 1/3 ounce?) of alcohol. It is 285ml (10 ounce) beer at 5%ish, 30ml spirit (a shot,40%), or 200-240ml wine.

  3. Everyone is different. Body weight, body fat content and other genetic factors all have an effect. High body fat content can lead to you getting drunk faster, something about alcohol being absorbed easily in fat, one reason women get drunk faster. People with a lot of body mass in general get drunk more slowly, the more muscle the better though. The other thing is that tall skinny guys like me can often drink big fat guys under the table. There is also the question of what your body is used to. You develop a certain tolerance to alcohol and learn to handle it better with practice.

  4. Stomach content. From personal experience - NEVER drink on an empty stomach. The alcohol has no “buffer” and is absorbed very quickly. Food in your stomach slows the absorption rate significantly

In short, yes, spirits kick harder, because you drink them faster, and if you mix, you get the fizz factor. So beer is better. In the words of the great Australian poet Henry Lawson:
“Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer”

7

It has nothing to do with the spirits. It has all to do with your size.
The bigger…more. The less…well…less. Alchohol is what it is. Just make sure you have a full tummy before you indulge.

8

[hijack on]

Another Antipodean!! Couldn’t help but recognise your wheels :slight_smile:

Welcome to the board big_yellow_kingswood

[hijack off]

9

I always FEEL more drunk after drinking a beer than hard stuff. Always. Which is why I like it more, I think. I guess my body responds well to the CO2, huh? Actually, a beer sounds quite good now. :slight_smile:

10

The proportions are different when your drinking 151 proof.

11

Drinking on a full stomach just slows the absorbtion of the alcohol; within an hour, all the alcohol will be absorbed.

Drinking shots may make you feel drunker, because the alcohol will be absorbed within a shorter period of time. But if you take 20 minutes to drink a beer, you will have about as much alcohol in your blood as if you took a shot 20 minutes before but nothing else.

Smaller people do get drunker; i.e., their BAC goes up quicker for the same drinks. This is simply because they have less blood.

Drinking carbonated drinks (mixed with soda, beer, etc.) does not make you drunker. CO[sub]2[/sub] has nothing to do with alcohol absorbtion.

Drinking coffee or other caffeinated drinks will not sober up a drunk; it’ll just make him wide awake.

It takes a relatively healthy person 1 hour for their body and liver to metabolize 1 drink’s worth of alcohol.

12

Beer and wine get me far more drunk than hard alcohol. 2-3 pints of beer, and I’m nice and wobbly. Not drunk, but I’ve got a pretty hard buzz. It takes at least 5-6 shots to do that to me. Yeah, 2 pints is about 3 servings of alcohol, but it still takes about 5 or 6 shots to equal that (80 proof stuff). Wine’s about the same as beer to me. My girlfriend is the same way, except more pronounced. 2 glasses of wine will get her nearly totally sloshed…but I’ve seen her do 7 shots of vodka in an hour and be hardly buzzed at all. Odd.

Jman