people claiming certain drinks get them more drunk

suicide_circus

You know, people saying "ooohh i can't drink wine, i get too messy" or "i can't handle whiskey" etc and they genuinely believe that these various preparations of the exact same drug have wildly differing effects on them even though it makes no logical sense.
Now if all you ever drink pints of beer and then go out one day and switch to pints of rum then obviously that's gonna have a marked effect on you.
Otherwise sane and rational people convince themselves that certain drinks have magical and dangerous qualities that make them no goes for them.
What's going on here?
Is it just people abdication responsibility for drinking stupid amounts by blaming the vodka or brandy?

Tigger

Wine gets me locked because I'm a pint drinker and so I drink pints of it and it's over twice as alcoholly
If I'm drinking shorts I respect them but wine is like tasty water to have with dinner
I no longer touch the stuff cos it gets me drunk

Tigger

suicide_circus wrote: »

You know, people saying "ooohh i can't drink wine, i get too messy" or "i can't handle whiskey" etc and they genuinely believe that these various preparations of the exact same drug have wildly differing effects on them even though it makes no logical sense.
Now if all you ever drink pints of beer and then go out one day and switch to pints of rum then obviously that's gonna have a marked effect on you.
Otherwise sane and rational people convince themselves that certain drinks have magical and dangerous qualities them make them no goes for them.
What's going on here?

Different drinks do contain other stuff that make you feel different and the concentration or sugar levels in drinks can effect how you feel
Lots of sugar makes people giddy even without alcohol,that's why cocktails are called cocktails

suicide_circus

Tigger wrote: »

Lots of sugar makes people giddy even without alcohol,that's why cocktails are called cocktails

Ehhm ... Think cocktails are called cocktails because they are a mix of different substances...not because sugar makes people giddy...

rubadub

I find the biggest effect is how much you have eaten before hand. When people are drinking unusual drinks (drinks unusual to them) they can be in different situations than normal drinking and do not make the connection so they blame the drink.

e.g. weddings. If a bunch of lads are out the night before they might wake up with empty stomachs, and may be drinking on empty stomachs early in the day. They can get ruined on champagne or wine and wrongly put all the "blame" on that drink.

Some will also drink at the same rate & volume no matter what, so when stella was 5.3% they might have drank the same 8 cans over several hours instead of their usual 4.3% stuff. The stella was 23% stronger but the drunknesses/blood alcohol level felt should be more than this 23%. Your body processes alcohol per hour, some reckon 1 pint per hour. So in theory if you drank 12 pints over 12 hours you might remain fairly sober. So if you drank 2 pints per hour 1 "goes to waste" and you feel the effect of 1 pint. If you drank 3 pints per hour still only 1 "goes to waste" and you feel the effect of 2 pints. So in that case 3 pints would get you in theory twice as drink as 2 pints per hour.

If people have spirits and mixers and are already drunk they can lash it down like water on a hot day. While the water content of normal beer can be a limiting factor, you simply cannot drink enough. It would be hard to get legless on 1% beer.

Some drinks will have different levels of other chemicals in them though, e.g. cider has methanol while rum has none, or bare trace amounts. These variations would cause different effects but mainly I put it down to food consumed beforehand, and the drinking rate and %.

the beer revolu

I do believe that sparkling wine gets you giddy faster than still wine.

listermint

suicide_circus wrote: »

You know, people saying "ooohh i can't drink wine, i get too messy" or "i can't handle whiskey" etc and they genuinely believe that these various preparations of the exact same drug have wildly differing effects on them even though it makes no logical sense.
Now if all you ever drink pints of beer and then go out one day and switch to pints of rum then obviously that's gonna have a marked effect on you.
Otherwise sane and rational people convince themselves that certain drinks have magical and dangerous qualities that make them no goes for them.
What's going on here?
Is it just people abdication responsibility for drinking stupid amounts by blaming the vodka or brandy?

Is this question serious? Im not sure if you realise those things mentioned contain different levels of alcohol in them.

so your question is rather confusing.

krd

rubadub wrote: »

Some will also drink at the same rate & volume no matter what, so when stella was 5.3% they might have drank the same 8 cans over several hours instead of their usual 4.3% stuff.

I've noticed something with Stella. When I drink it, it turns out to feel stronger than I expected.

I don't go to the pub much as it's just too expensive these days. But I have noticed Guinness seems a lot stronger in a pub than from a can.

rubadub

the beer revolu wrote: »

I do believe that sparkling wine gets you giddy faster than still wine.

Yes, it is supposed to be absorbed faster, so sort of like drinking on an empty stomach.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1717-champagne-does-get-you-drunk-faster.html

She gave champagne to 12 volunteers - half drank fizzy champagne and the other half had flat champagne, purged of its bubbles beforehand with a whisk. The following week, she repeated the experiment but gave each volunteer the opposite kind of champagne to the previous time. That way, everyone tried both types of wine.

Each person drank two glasses of champagne per session. Ridout adjusted the exact intakes so that everyone drank the same amount of alcohol per kilogram of body mass. Sure enough, alcohol levels rose much faster among the bubbly drinkers. After just five minutes, they had an average of 0.54 milligrams of alcohol per millilitre of blood. Those drinking flat champagne averaged just 0.39 milligrams of alcohol.

Studies also showed people drinking spirits with diet mixers also got more drunk.

listermint wrote: »

Is this question serious? Im not sure if you realise those things mentioned contain different levels of alcohol in them.

Of course he does, see his mention of pints of rum. Some people do irrationally think a single shot of a particular spirit will have a remarkable effect on them.

matrim

Personally I find different types of drink can affect you differently. Allowing for the alcohol content (e.g. having 125ml of wine vs 500ml of beer) , I find myself getting a different "kind of drunk" if I have wine to if I have beer. It's probably something like sugar content and absorption time that makes the difference.

tommy2bad

I have a brother in law that cant drink whiskey, well he can but his wife won't let him. She insists he gets violent if he drinks whiskey. Neither of them see any objection to vodka or gin though.
I wonder if it has more to do with the fact that she doesn't like the taste of whiskey.
I don't see any difference in how drunk you get or how you feel when drunk between drinks other than how fast you can get their.
Volume and time, a tricksy ratio to get right.

celticcrash

I used to get drunk on vodka but whiskey is another level alltogeather.
Different drinks.

irish_goat

There's people who've convinced themselves that gin puts them in a terrible state and vodka doesn't despite the fact they're essentially the same spirit. It's all in people's heads or like rubadub says, it's due to different factors like the amount of food they have in them.

the beer revolu

I do also notice a difference in the effect of stronger beer compared to an equivalent amount of weaker beer drunk in the same time.
If find strong beer a bit more "trippy" and far less messy.
I can't think why, though and I know lots of people will say it's nonsense.

johnnyskeleton

Human digestive systems are quite complex and vary from person to person. Given that we can't slit a persons guts open to observe ad keep them working at the same time it becomes difficultto say with absolute certainty what chemical reactions take place in different people.

At a certain point the rate of alcohol absorptio. Is maximised and at another point the alcohol content is so strong the stomach doesn't pass it through straight away and instead allows time for it to dissolve before it goes into the intestines. This is why shots of straight spirits will have no noticeable affect on the person (other than those who vomit, of course) until 20 mins or so after consumption. If they keep drinking shots in this 20 minutes the alcohol builds up and the sudden input of alcohol into the system causes damage, most notably memory loss, loss of motor function and, in some extreme cases respiratory failure (ie death, but death from actual alcohol poisoning is still quite rare, most alcohol related deaths will be due to choking on vomit, death by misadventure etc).

So because of all this and other factors (food, rest, general health, medication, general tolerance) absorption rates can vary greatly. On one day I could feel the effect after half a pint of light beer, on another feel no noticeable effect after two pint of strong beer.

However, no physical difference is anywhere as important as psychological differences. Generally, someone who is having a good time and not watching how much they drink will drink more than someone who is being more sensible. So drinking aftershock at a wedding is probably as bad for being a statement of intent than it is in pure alcohol consumption terms.

As to gin making people feel depressed, whiskey violent, wine amourous etc while this is mostly in peoples heads, who is to say that it is not true for them? If they believe it hard enough they will become so.

Bruce7

Guinness gets me much more drunk than any other 4-4.5% beer that you get on tap in a pub. Friends who are life long Guinness drinkers find the same. It also gives a way worse hangover.

I can't explain it but I know it's true. On a night out I'd probably drink 8-10 pints of lager between say 8PM and 3AM. I'd be pretty merry after it, but at no stage would I be messy or out of control, and I'd be grand the next day. A bit tired, but nothing more.

If I had 4 pints of Guinness I'd be making a fool of myself. If I had 5, I'd have to go home, and I'd also spend most of the next morning puking and wouldn't be able to eat until the next evening.

I drank vast quantities of Guinness throughout my 20s, but now I can't touch the stuff, and I can name at least a dozen people who would all say the same.

sbsquarepants

It does seem to make little sense, alcohol is alcohol is alcohol, but any amount of anecdotal evidence says different drinks effect people differently. Personally, for example, i find spirits give me memory loss - and i'm not talking about drinking a bottle of whiskey and forgetting how i got home, even 2 or 3 vodkas say and i have trouble remembering. Whereas a similar number of units of alcohol taken as beer wouldn't cause any such trouble.
My hunch is it's down to absorbtion rates, or how well the alcohol is bound into the solution it's in, ie vodka offers up it's alcohol content quicker than beer say because it's less "stuck" to other ingredients or some such. But i'm basing that on absolutely nothing, so i'm very much open to correction!:D

rubadub

sbsquarepants wrote: »

It does seem to make little sense, alcohol is alcohol is alcohol, but any amount of anecdotal evidence says different drinks effect people differently.

The anecdotes often will leave out the most important factor, often food.

Bruce7 wrote: »

I can't explain it but I know it's true.
If I had 4 pints of Guinness I'd be making a fool of myself.

Have you thought of other factors. e.g. why would you drink guinness and not lager?

I know people who would never have guinness with say a curry, but would have a lager. Many of the same people would call guinness "heavy" and lager "light", so they are unlikely to be drinking guinness after eating. And so in this way I could imagine them getting more drunk on guinness more often, but really it is down to the food.

I can feel fairly tipsy after 3 pints on an empty stomach. After christmas dinner it could be 8-10 cans to feel the same effect.

sbsquarepants wrote: »

My hunch is it's down to absorbtion rates, or how well the alcohol is bound into the solution it's in,

Yes, if you diluted your vodka down with non alcoholic beer to the same % as normal beer it would probably have similar effects as regular beer.

celticcrash

Saying all spirits are all the same is nonsence. It like saying that all cars are the same. They all have four wheels and an engine but some are a lot more powerfull than others. Just because vodka is 42% and whiskey is 42% does not put them in the same category. Its all in the way they are brewed and fermented.
If you cant tell the difference in strenght between vodka and whisky, than you have not had enought experience with these spirits.
So stop waffling about what you dont know.
Any man whos over 30 and a regular drinker would laugh at you if you told them that vodka and whisky were the same strenght.

I have a little idea that maybe from around 5 or 6% upwards it can be more effective because there's time for absorption whereas with weak beer it can go through too quickly or with spirits it hasn't enough time to all get absorbed.
Wine just ruins me. Three bottles roughly equal a bottle of spirits and I could easily get through 2 bottles of spirits on a day-long session, have never been able to get far into a 5th bottle of wine.

Blisterman

Am I right in saying that there are actually a blend of different types of alcohol in different drinks, Ethanol, methanol, fusel alcohols etc? Could this have something to do with it?

rubadub

celticcrash wrote: »

Saying all spirits are all the same is nonsence. It like saying that all cars are the same.

that would be a fair point if people were saying all alcoholic drinks are the same.

celticcrash wrote: »

Its all in the way they are brewed and fermented.

What differences do you think occur?

Have you ever found different effects from other drugs, like different brands of paracetamol? I would compare vodka & whiskey to 2 brands of normal paracetamol pills. Then I might compare beer & whiskey to a regular paracetamol and a fast acting dissolvable one, or being injected.

celticcrash wrote: »

Any man whos over 30 and a regular drinker would laugh at you if you told them that vodka and whisky were the same strenght.

I wouldn't laugh, I'm in my mid 30's, male, regular drinker, have brewed beer & wine for many years. Have also brewed, distilled & aged plenty of my own rum & vodka and some whiskey & brandy. Whiskey & vodka can be made from the exact same fermented brew. I have read all the theory behind it, and all the mythology too. I would still put it more down to differences in drinking methods, rate of ingestion, dilution etc rather than the actual alcohol, both from experience and logical sense.

The main difference between spirits would be the ratios of congeners, the different types of alcohol type substances produced during fermentation, like ethyl acetate and acetone, they can be have different ratios depending on the distillation method too. But the bulk of the spirit will still be water & ethanol e.g. skyy vodka is well known to be treated and distilled in such a way to remove all congeners and so give less of a hangover. A cheap brandy would have higher levels of methanol, a rum would have only bare traces of methanol.

As these other chemicals are minor constituents I would not expect, and do not find much difference between them in drunkeness, but would find a difference in hangover effect. Levels will change in different brands too, so if you do think you are susceptible it should not be just point the finger at one drink, esp. with spirits. e.g. skyy vodka would be a lot purer than some cheapo vodka. Some will inherently have more, like cider is high in methanol, while a sugar brew will only contain bare trace amounts.

the beer revolu

celticcrash wrote: »

Saying all spirits are all the same is nonsence. It like saying that all cars are the same. They all have four wheels and an engine but some are a lot more powerfull than others. Just because vodka is 42% and whiskey is 42% does not put them in the same category. Its all in the way they are brewed and fermented.
If you cant tell the difference in strenght between vodka and whisky, than you have not had enought experience with these spirits.
So stop waffling about what you dont know.
Any man whos over 30 and a regular drinker would laugh at you if you told them that vodka and whisky were the same strenght.

That is just funny!!

Especially this bit:

So stop waffling about what you dont know.

celticcrash

In my drinking days I could drink vodka out through my ears till the cows came home. Whiskey was a different kettle of fish alltogeather. I got a lot more drunk off whisky. A few hours with whiskey and it was off to bed with me.
Ask any alcoholic which is more powerfull, vodka or whiskey?
Walk into any pub with hard drinkers and ask them which is the more powerfull?
They will allways tell you the whiskey is more powerfull, than again maybe they are all wrong.

puffishoes

celticcrash wrote: »

In my drinking days I could drink vodka out through my ears till the cows came home. Whiskey was a different kettle of fish alltogeather. I got a lot more drunk off whisky. A few hours with whiskey and it was off to bed with me.
Ask any alcoholic which is more powerfull, vodka or whiskey?
Walk into any pub with hard drinkers and ask them which is the more powerfull?
They will allways tell you the whiskey is more powerfull, than again maybe they are all wrong.

We should run our theory's by alcoholics and "hard" drinkers?

Oh my.

celticcrash

puffishoes wrote: »

We should run our theory's by alcoholics and "hard" drinkers?

Oh my.

Yes you said it OUR THEORY`S.

puffishoes

celticcrash wrote: »

Yes you said it OUR THEORY`S.

and what will the hardened alcoholic drinker give us? proof?

of what exactly?

celticcrash

No we will ask some innocent kid he`s theory on which spirit has more strenght.:D

the beer revolu

Aren't the likes of Huzzar and Smirnoff 37.5% ABV while Paddy and Powers are 40% ABV.
Not a huge difference but if drinking a lot of shots over a long day...?

Also vodka would generally be mixed with something while many people would drink whiskey straight.

Also, in Ireland, vodka is often considered a 'lady's drink'. Not surprising that 'hardened drinkers' would claim whiskey to be stronger.

tonymontana82

does any1 here have major problems after drinking vodka & red bull? eg..total memory loss. anytime i drink it after towards the end of the night i always get in a right state, compared to if i just drank lets say vodka & coke or orange. i just cant understand how big a difference the red bull makes.
I didnt take any notice of it in my younger days but im almost 30 now & its seriously worrying me.

the beer revolu

tonymontana82 wrote: »

does any1 here have major problems after drinking vodka & red bull? eg..total memory loss. anytime i drink it after towards the end of the night i always get in a right state, compared to if i just drank lets say vodka & coke or orange. i just cant understand how big a difference the red bull makes.
I didnt take any notice of it in my younger days but im almost 30 now & its seriously worrying me.

Oh yes!!
The very few times (long time ago) I decided to mix Red Bull with alcohol, all hell broke loose. And yes, memory loss.
I think the RB allows you to drink much more when already drunk.
It really is loony juice and I strongly believe it should not be sold in bars/pubs/clubs.

Jev/N

irish_goat wrote: »

There's people who've convinced themselves that gin puts them in a terrible state and vodka doesn't despite the fact they're essentially the same spirit. It's all in people's heads or like rubadub says, it's due to different factors like the amount of food they have in them.

Well not really, gin has a lot of herbs, spices and fruits added in. It's possible that could be a factor in the difference between people's experiences. And as stated above, the mixers you drink with them. You rarely drink a really sugary mixer with gin - bitter lemon most likely with the most sugar.

tommy2bad

Caffeine added to alcohol now what could go wrong! one word Buckfast.

celticcrash

tonymontana82 wrote: »

does any1 here have major problems after drinking vodka & red bull? eg..total memory loss. anytime i drink it after towards the end of the night i always get in a right state, compared to if i just drank lets say vodka & coke or orange. i just cant understand how big a difference the red bull makes.
I didnt take any notice of it in my younger days but im almost 30 now & its seriously worrying me.

Say hello to my little friend. Just drinking a few cans of red bull without alcohol can make a person hyper or more agitated. Put alcohol on top of that and you have a hyper drunk.

johnnyskeleton

celticcrash wrote: »

In my drinking days I could drink vodka out through my ears till the cows came home. Whiskey was a different kettle of fish alltogeather. I got a lot more drunk off whisky. A few hours with whiskey and it was off to bed with me.
Ask any alcoholic which is more powerfull, vodka or whiskey?
Walk into any pub with hard drinkers and ask them which is the more powerfull?
They will allways tell you the whiskey is more powerfull, than again maybe they are all wrong.

You make it sound as though drinking a nice floral single malt from a glencairn with a touch of of water is a lesser way of drinking whiskey than slamming down shots of paddy.

rubadub

celticcrash wrote: »

Ask any alcoholic which is more powerfull, vodka or whiskey?
Walk into any pub with hard drinkers and ask them which is the more powerfull?
They will allways tell you the whiskey is more powerfull, than again maybe they are all wrong.

"always"!? -how many have you asked? in your surveys was it really 100% who replied whiskey?

What do you think/claim the different effects are? i.e. do you believe you get an increased blood alcohol level with a 40% whiskey compared to a 40% vodka drank in the exact same manner?

Or do you believe you feel more intoxicated though you may have the same blood alcohol level?

I have met a lot of heavy drinkers and never heard this claim before. If it is apparently such common knowledge you would expect the likes of students & alcoholics to solely be drinking whiskey to save money. If there was such an obvious difference in the effects you would expect road safety authorities in countries would have given warnings against this and take it into account in their laws. e.g. if you do believe blood alcohol levels get higher with whiskey they would say "your legal limit is 1 pint, 2 shots of vodka, or 1 shot of whiskey".

If you believe the intoxication is more at the same blood alcohol level then I would expect a few other changes. e.g. the governments would decrease the limit taking the worst case scenario into account (people drinking whiskey), and there would be an opposition from beer & vodka manufacturers who's apparently less intoxicating drink is being put in the same group.

Whiskey marketers would be cashing in on the extra intoxication effects in their marketing. Other distillers would be trying to recreate the magical effect.

the beer revolu wrote: »

Also, in Ireland, vodka is often considered a 'lady's drink'.

While in Russia or Poland its a guys drink. You would think these guys would have switched to whiskey to save a bit of money! must inform the polish lads in work.

tonymontana82 wrote: »

does any1 here have major problems after drinking vodka & red bull?

Caffeine is a psychoactive drug, many just turn a blind eye to it since mammy takes this drug and so it has no stigma attached to it.

2010
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/16/alcohol.caffeine.drinks/index.html

The Food and Drug Administration is preparing to ban caffeinated alcohol drinks, Sen. Charles Schumer said Tuesday...

The combination of caffeine and alcohol -- which also is found in drinks like rum and cola -- allows drinkers to consume alcohol for a longer period of time without headaches, dry mouth or other unpleasant side effects, according to Kevin Clauson, an associate professor of pharmacy at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Jev/N wrote: »

Well not really, gin has a lot of herbs, spices and fruits added in. It's possible that could be a factor in the difference between people's experiences.

In most gins these herbs & spices would be benign flavorings, but with no known psychoactive effects. Do people claim to experience different intoxication after drinking while eating a curry, or other dishes with particular herbs in them?

If these herbs did cause a known pronounced effect I would expect it would be common knowledge and the likes of head shop would be selling them, and people eating them in pill form with their beer or vodka.

Absinthe of course is one drink with an added alleged psychoactive, though most commercial stuff has very low levels. Most people reporting it being "mental" are drinking it neat at 70-80%.

the beer revolu

celticcrash wrote: »

In my drinking days I could drink vodka out through my ears till the cows came home.

Ah I see why you might have the impression that vodka isn't intoxicating - we don't absorb alcohol through the ears.;)

sbsquarepants

the beer revolu wrote: »

Oh yes!!
The very few times (long time ago) I decided to mix Red Bull with alcohol, all hell broke loose. And yes, memory loss.
I think the RB allows you to drink much more when already drunk.
It really is loony juice and I strongly believe it should not be sold in bars/pubs/clubs.

It's just a stimulant, a mild enough one by the standards of whats available illegally, but it's still enough to keep you awake and drinking vodka when you normally would have passed out.

Cienciano

Bruce7 wrote: »

Guinness gets me much more drunk than any other 4-4.5% beer that you get on tap in a pub. Friends who are life long Guinness drinkers find the same. It also gives a way worse hangover.

I can't explain it but I know it's true. On a night out I'd probably drink 8-10 pints of lager between say 8PM and 3AM. I'd be pretty merry after it, but at no stage would I be messy or out of control, and I'd be grand the next day. A bit tired, but nothing more.

If I had 4 pints of Guinness I'd be making a fool of myself. If I had 5, I'd have to go home, and I'd also spend most of the next morning puking and wouldn't be able to eat until the next evening.

I drank vast quantities of Guinness throughout my 20s, but now I can't touch the stuff, and I can name at least a dozen people who would all say the same.

From my experience I'd disagree with everything you said there!
Guinness doesn't make me more drunk than something like heineken. As for hangovers, that's down to the individual. I almost never get hangovers no matter what I drink.

tonymontana82

sbsquarepants wrote: »

It's just a stimulant, a mild enough one by the standards of whats available illegally, but it's still enough to keep you awake and drinking vodka when you normally would have passed out.

I wouldnt say that, if i drank the same amount of vodka but with orange, coke or 7up, i know for a fact i wouldnt be half as bad as the rb & vodka would make me.
Its not even the staying awake or memory loss that happens me, the weird **** that goes through my head when i drink it. thats whats freaking me out.

sbsquarepants

Well it is a pschoative stimulant, the obvious thing to do is if it doesn't agree with you - stop drinking it!

Incidentally, would you drink much tea, cofee, coke and so on during your normal course of events - could be you just aren't all that used to cafeine?

Bruce7

Cienciano wrote: »

From my experience I'd disagree with everything you said there!
Guinness doesn't make me more drunk than something like heineken. As for hangovers, that's down to the individual. I almost never get hangovers no matter what I drink.

I used to be able to say the same. God be with the days!

tonymontana82

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Well it is a pschoative stimulant, the obvious thing to do is if it doesn't agree with you - stop drinking it!

Incidentally, would you drink much tea, cofee, coke and so on during your normal course of events - could be you just aren't all that used to cafeine?[/QUOT]

Dont really drink coke anymore although i drink lets say 2 coffee`s a day instead.
Its hard to stop drinking it because im normally loaded with pints by the time i go on shorts & all my mates drink them aswell.
What maybe the reason is my personality, i was always a messer so maybe it brings it to the extreme.

celticcrash

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

You make it sound as though drinking a nice floral single malt from a glencairn with a touch of of water is a lesser way of drinking whiskey than slamming down shots of paddy.

Drinking a nice floral single malt from a glencairn with a touch of of water is the proper way to enjoy whiskey. People who slam down paddy are not drinking to enjoy the taste. They are drinking for the effect.

johnnyskeleton

celticcrash wrote: »

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

You make it sound as though drinking a nice floral single malt from a glencairn with a touch of of water is a lesser way of drinking whiskey than slamming down shots of paddy.

Drinking a nice floral single malt from a glencairn with a touch of of water is the proper way to enjoy whiskey. People who slam down paddy are not drinking to enjoy the taste. They are drinking for the effect.

If I were to drink whiskey that way and also sip vodka at a similar rate, I wouldn't notice any significant difference in drunkenness (allowing of course for vodka usually being 37.5% and good whiskey 46%). I can't comment on whether shots of whiskey r vodka make one drinker but it would seem to be about the same (again, allowing for whiskey being stronger in abv than vodka).

The man in red and black

Bruce7 wrote: »

Guinness gets me much more drunk than any other 4-4.5% beer that you get on tap in a pub. Friends who are life long Guinness drinkers find the same. It also gives a way worse hangover.

I can't explain it but I know it's true. On a night out I'd probably drink 8-10 pints of lager between say 8PM and 3AM. I'd be pretty merry after it, but at no stage would I be messy or out of control, and I'd be grand the next day. A bit tired, but nothing more.

If I had 4 pints of Guinness I'd be making a fool of myself. If I had 5, I'd have to go home, and I'd also spend most of the next morning puking and wouldn't be able to eat until the next evening.

I drank vast quantities of Guinness throughout my 20s, but now I can't touch the stuff, and I can name at least a dozen people who would all say the same.

As someone said above part of the difference in alcohols is the different chemicals in it, at least in terms of hangovers. Congeners are widely accepted to play a large role in causing hangovers. They tend to be found in the highest concentrations in darker drinks, such as whiskey, black rum, red wine Guinness etc. Similarly they are in lower concentrations in Vodka, white wine, lager etc. This may explain part of the difference you feel with Guinness and hangovers. Though I also think the argument that we drink different drinks in different situations, eg rarely Guinness on a full stomach, may also be worth considering!

metalfest

Just saw this thread and thought I'd throw my two cents in...

I can handle all drinks pretty much the same, different types of mood when drunk etc. same as the next person.

But, when I drink Ballantines it will put me to sleep, and I will stay sleeping for much longer than any amount of any other drink. Personally, I don't understand why it's this one particular drink.