I’ve always heard things like liquor before beer. You’re in the clear and that mixing brown and white can go bad, but why are you not supposed to mix alcohols?
In: Biology
The saying around “beer before liquor” isn’t that mixing is inherently bad – it’s all about the order. That’s why the other half is “liquor before beer, you’re in the clear”. It’s also why the saying is more about liquor without mixers.
Alcohol doesn’t take effect right away. It takes time for the full effects to be felt. 30-60 minutes is typical, but some people can have longer or shorter times. As a result, if you stop drinking, you’ll still keep feeling drunker for a decent amount of time. Whatever you’ve drunk in the last half an hour takes a while to kick in. If whatever you had is a light beer, that’s fine. If it’s several shots of whiskey, you’re in trouble. You’re *going* to overshoot after a few drinks – doing the liquor first and beer second makes it more likely that you only overshoot by a single drink rather than a bunch of shots.
If your liquor has a bunch of mixer in it and the amount of time taken for one drink is similar to beer, that’s fine too.
Because beer is fermented, it takes longer to go through your system. If you drink it first and then liquor, it back up and then hits you at once. If you do liquor first, that goes through quicker, so you don’t have have that backup.
The idea of beer first being bad and liquor first being good is due to how much you actually end up drinking. If you start out with shots and then start drinking beer the shots will hit you and before you can finish too much beer (unless you chug). If you drink the beer first then you can easily do too many shots because you won’t realize you’ve had to much
The most important factor for whether you feel sick from alcohol, is the total amount of alcohol you drink in a given time period.
Sure, there are other minor factors, like if you are drinking on an empty stomach that may make you feel sicker. Or if you aren’t used to how bubbly and heavy beer is, it may give you a stomach ache unrelated to the alcohol. But the MOST important factor is just the quantity of alcohol and the time period you drank it in.
So why do people say liquor before beer is the way to go? Well, when you are sober, you are more likely to pace yourself and be cautious. You’ll feel the burn of the liquor you are drinking. So you are unlikely to go overboard. Then, if you switch to beer when you feel tipsy, the logic is that even if you drink it a little too fast, it’s a lot to drink! So while it’s possible to get too drunk, it’s less likely because you’ll have to physically drink so much to do it. It’s easier to control, which is great for when you have less control.
On the other hand, if you continue drinking liquor after you feel tipsy, it’s much easier to drink too much. You won’t feel the burn as much, and you may feel tempted to “keep up” with others. Whenever they do a shot, you’ll want one too. You might lose count of how many shots you’ve done because they happened quickly.
So it’s not that there’s anything chemically different going on based on the order. It’s just that you are more likely to drink less total alcohol if you drink liquor first and beer later. And since the total alcohol over time is the most important factor, it’s a good way to not get sick from drinking. But if you know your limits and don’t overdo it, drink whatever you want in whatever order you want. You won’t get sick if you know your body well and drink to get tipsy instead of blackout drunk.
I’ve assumed it’s mostly because drunk people are garbage at making mixed drinks and tend to make them strong as all hell then don’t taste the booze cos they’re plastered. As that girl who dragged a shot glass to parties for mixed drinks I tended not to have too many issues
Unlikely. More likely is that mixing your drinks is generally associated with drinking _more heavily_.
Mixing doesn’t do anything, but I will say that wine gives me worse hangovers than anything, I think it’s all the sugar
I routinely kized spirits and beer, my whole order of operations for getting drunk was the good spirits to start and then swap to cheaper swills when my sense of taste pulls chute. Only times Ive been sick from those nights is when said mixing also involved stupid young dude “cirrhosis speedrun” shit like playing shot for shot with people and drinking a punt between rounds and the like, or i forgot to drink any water at all.
Its not that youre mixing, its that youre typically drinking a lot more than you realize on those occasions.
I know why its bad for me, simply put drinking beer makes me really really thirsty. This is a problem if I drink only beer cause I can down half a case in a short evening.
This is a **huge** problem if I start drinking beer, and then get the whiskey later.
I’ve got a half galleon water jug that I’ll empty in between the drinks and I’ll still get good and well drunk enough for my wife to complain.
No. Ethanol is ethanol, regardless of what label it has or what it is mixed with. Drink too much and you get drunk.
There’s not much more to say about it.
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