Alcohol is alcohol so far as I can see. Why do people often claim specific drinks like Jagermeister, Tequila or Wild Turkey will “fuck you up” or make you more “nuts” than a bunch of gin and tonics or daiquiris yielding the same amount of alcohol? Why do certain drinks have a reputation for facilitating or encouraging erratic, out of control behavior?
I have no idea whether there is any scientific evidence for any of these claims (and I suppose it’s doubtful, if they are broken down by your body the same way), but they make sense if only because people are often in certain company and environments while drinking certain liquors, in my experience.
e.g. wine is often had with food, potentially lessening its effects, Jagermeister and tequila are often done at bars in shot form (and shots are often done when people already have a few drinks in them), rum is often mixed with other alcohols in sickly sweet drinks, possibly encouraging upset stomach… I’m sure there are others.
Two reasons
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The alcoholic content (120 proof versus 80 proof versus 3.2%) is different meaning the same volumes of alcohol produce wildly different alcoholic levels
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A fruity drink can contain the exact same amount of alcohol as a shot of vodka, but because you can’t taste the liquor, you don’t register that it’s alcoholic. So you drink more or at a faster rate. You body, however, isn’t fooled by that masking and when it hits, it hits you harder and more unexpectedly.
Tequila made me drive my car into a bridge abutment at 50 miles per hour. It is that tasty.
I would guess that most of the people that talk about getting “fucked up” are too young to have a whole lot of experience so whatever is easily drinkable, in quantity, will have that rep. Drinks like Zombies and Long Island Iced teas have lots of alcohol but are still very drinkable. Straight scotch, not so much, you probably want to sip that. Anything that is done in the form of shots - it will fuck you up, man.
Holy crap but that made me laugh. Yeah, craziest shit I’ve ever done was after tequila shots. Go to jail crazy. The reasons above by Cat and Ender strike me as pretty plausible.
I don’t have any scientific evidence, but my ex was an alchoholic who usually drank beer or rum but I could always tell when it was tequila instead. His personality changed and he did really weird shit (like woke up in the middle of the night and pissed in the corner of our bedroom because he thought he made it to the bathroom).
Speaking as a long time heavy drinker (read as no longer practising alcoholic), although the alcohol content may be the same, different types of alcohol affected me differently. A beer buzz was different than a wine or whiskey buzz. My drink of choice was beer. At my peak I could easily drink 12-18 pilsner type beers in a sitting and be no worse for the wear. If I were to drink the equivalent in Jameson, I was a bumbling idiot. Perhaps my body was used to metabolizing the beer but not quite as efficient with the whiskey.
I also agree with the context theory from upthread. Your emotional state plays a big role in how alcohol affects you. The same amount of alcohol can yield different results in different contexts. For me when I was drinking beer if I started in on the shots, I was doing it specifically to lose inhibitions more quickly. I expected to be more “fucked up” and was. A large part of this may be psychological, but could be measured empirically by “field sobriety” tests.
As I used to say, “One more, then we all go!”
Having been a bartender and a lover of alcohol there are a few things that will make a difference. As stated before the proof of an alchol will make a big difference. The other being carbonation.The more carbonated the drink the quicker the body will absorb the alcohol. Thus champagne will get you f*d up the quickest versus sipping on a glass of wine even though the proof may be the same.
As for the differences between different types of alcohol, e.g. whiskey and tequila
thats harder to say. I can tell you this while I am generally a fun drunk if I go on a gin jag watch out. While I will not go looking for a fight I will not walk away from one either. This only happens after a few too many glasses of Queen Victoria’s milk and not any other type of liquid intoxicant.
I have to say I really believe different alcohols have made me act differently, this is over about 20 years of casually drinking with friends at bars or parties.
Vodka, beer or wine are fine. I stay happy all night and am a fun drunk.
Whisky, I’ve had it as my main drinking alcohol for the evening only twice and blacked out both times. I’ve been told for many years after what I did those nights, I don’t remember any of it. I won’t touch the stuff. Never had that experience with any other kind of alcohol.
Tequila, also only had it as my main drinking alcohol for the evening a few times. Ended up a crying mess by the end of the night each time. A couple shots during the evening while I’m mostly drinking beer or vodka, no problem.
So, just from my own experiences, I’ve got definite opinions on different alcohols doing different things to me. Don’t get me wrong - ALL alcohol will “fuck you up” if you drink enough of it. I’ve been plenty messed up from vodka, beer and wine; but I remember everything that happened and don’t go on a crying jag with those. Done plenty of stupid stuff, though!
My reaction at reading the end of that article…
:eek::smack::smack: :eek: Nope… still can’t get that image out of my head… :smack::smack::smack:
Alcohol enemas? Good LORD that’s a bad bad bad idea…
Alcohol has a long history and until recent must have seemed quite mystical. So of course a lot of lore has built up around it.
I’m sure from a chemistry perspective alcohol is alcohol, but I no longer drink whiskey due to the fact that it affected my mood like no other booze.
I can’t explain how, but whiskey affects me this way, and vodka does not.
And for what it’s worth, my heritage is Irish, not Russian.
Was the fat chick ejected from the vehicle or was she wearing a seat belt ? 
Different kinds of booze most definitely affect me differently. Tequila makes me so violently ill I’m not sure about it…beer sort of energizes me, I like to have a couple in the hot summer…Southern Comfort? I drank a quantity of this for a while and the result was blackouts and threats to have the police come and take me away…Wine makes me groggy immediately, but I have it with meals that put me in a stupor anyway. I avoid most hard liquor, so can’t say much about the different kinds. My favorite alcohol is a nice glass of sherry. It doesn’t take a lot to give me a nice, warm, quiet, relaxed buzz, and even if I drink more than I should, I don’t seem to feel bad the next day, and it seems to wear off fairly quickly. (My drinking days seem to be over and I haven’t had a hangover in years and years, can’t imagine how I managed to do anything when I did drink to excess.)
Relevant skit : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfDLDB4g0F4
As a heavy drinker in my youth, I can attest to the differences between drinks. Nothing gets a buzz going on faster than champagne. I could drink the same amount of hard liquor, or four times the alcohol, and not get light-headed as fast. Never drank champagne at once more than maybe three glasses, though.
Whiskey and vodka have a delayed effect. You down the drinks and it’ll take a good while for anything to register. Drinking beer, which is almost water in comparison, is about as fast, even though there’s no way to ingest an equal amount of alcohol as fast in beer as in hard liquor ( a whole bottle of beer equals one gulp of liquor).
I used to drink 12-15 beers to get a good party buzz going on. Drinking a bottle of whisky or vodka (equal alc.) never worked for a party buzz. The drunkenness was heavier, calmer, more reflective.
Even the “level” of hangover is attributed by experts almost solely to the amount of alcohol ingested. But I never had a hangover from drinking beer, even when I drank it enough to pass out, while drinking just a few shots of vodka would give me a headache and a wine binge would produce a hellacious morning after. The amount of alcohol to get me wasted was pretty constant but the results surely varied.
You think that’s bad? I got so messed up on tequila one time, I went home and blew Chunks.
He didn’t seem to mind.
I did this also, ever since I have referred to tequila as a drug not an alcohol.
There’s also a psychosomatic effect.
Drinks are “branded” as mean, soft, quick-to-get-you-drunk etc as described upthread.
If you drink champagne in the knowledge the bubbles will get you drunk quicker, then sure enough that’s what’ll happen.
As soon as someone says “whoa, you’re on gin tonight… mean drunk ahead!!”, you’ll start acting that part.
Also if someone is already disposed to meanness is it not more likely they’ll drink a “mean persons” drink? How many bikers drink rose wine when they’re out?
It might be “mean drinkers like certain drinks”, rather than “certain drinks make drinkers mean”?