Just as the thread title says, why doesn’t Everclear give me a hangover? At first it seems counterintuitive: 95% alcohol should equal a much worse morning than 40% alcohol. However, this isn’t the case. It doesn’t seem to matter how much I drink of it (well, without killing myself), I always wake up feeling fine. This is unlike alot of hard liquor, in which I feel terrible the next day. In addition, with Everclear I’ll sleep 6 hours and wake up more refreshed than I feel during a normal night’s sleep.
I have two theories:
Being 95% alcohol means it is only 5% impurities, whereas something that is 40% alcohol has lots more room for ‘bad stuff’.
Each shot of Everclear has to be mixed with a significant amount of juice, pop, or what-have-you. This means I am drinking more non-booze liquids, thereby staying more hydrated than I would by mixing weaker hard liquors with less mixer.
So what’s the deal?
And as an aside, this stuff should be legal in Michigan. It is wrong to have to make a 100-mile drive to Ohio to buy a $12 bottle of booze.
a: You’re mixing it with something that won’t upset your stomach.
b: You sneak a nip when you wake up to dull the pain
c: You aren’t really getting real Everclear
d: Your liver is made of kryptonite.
e: You haven’t sobered up yet.
I would guess it’s a combination of mixing it with water-based mixers, thus lessening the dehydration, and the lack of congeners (the impurities that darker liquors have). Congeners are known to exacerbate the pain of a hangover.
You might feel fine, but in the long run Everclear ain’t good for you. Plus it marks you as a hopeless drunk with no taste.
If I were you, I’d switch to light rum, gin or vodka - you should still feel fine from the lack of congeners, and you can mix a better class of drinks. Try a rum or vodka tonic if you don’t like gin - these taste great on a summer day.
f: You’re drinking less because of the psychology (placebo?) of it being Everclear, going into WOOFUCKINWHOBABY!!! mode sooner, and thereby curbing your drinking with less absolute volume of alcohol when you go to bed.
Eh, I doubt it. There’s three main things that contribute to a hangover:
Dehydration. Alcohol itself dehydrates you. If you ix it with water or juice this effect will be small to non-existent. Beer and soda–mixers will dehydrate you more in the long run, so that’s why a night full of screwdrivers is better in the morning that a night full of carbombs, even if the amount of ethanol is the same.
Other stuff in the booze (the aforementioned congeners.) Depending on whether you have beer, hard liquor, or wine, there will be other things in there that your body won’t like. The closer you are to pure ethanol, the less of these there will be.
The alcohol itself. Alcohol gets broken down by the liver into several other chemicals, none of which are good for your body. This is the only part of a hangover you truly have no control over. The same amount of ethanol, whether it’s beer, Everclear, or red wine, will make the same amount of these chemicals.
So, as said before, the reason for less of a hangover is because you are reducing the effects of #1 and #2. But in my experience, any kind of not-completely bottom-shelf vodka (ie, not the $8 for a handle, go at least double digits there) will get similar results, since vodka is just ethanol and water as well.