The other day I was at work and overheard a conversation I’ve heard at least a hundred times in a hundred different places. The subject is one of the oldest and most misunderstood drinking rules ever. It’s mostly misunderstood because people always screw up the saying itself, which in turn sends them directly up Oh Snap Creek without a paddle.
You’ve all head it, or variations of it, before: “Beer then liquor, never been sicker. Liquor then beer, have no fear.” This boys and girls is the correct variation of the saying.
The problem with this handy little dandy is that it doesn’t give an explanation as to why or why not one would or would not get sick for not adhering to the rule. But here’s the rub, the very people to whom this saying was meant to protect are the very ones who question it. And we all know who those people are. The college-aged Green Horns. [Editor's note: Green Horns? Nice one grandpa.]
Their first mistake is they over think the whole thing. Actually no. First they mess up the saying, and then they use the two years of fancy schoolin’ they have under their belts to justify the order they put the saying in. I’ve heard some of the most complex and well thought out explanations you could imagine. They range from the different alcohol contents combining to create a super drug that intensifies exponentially each hour by the square root of your body weight to various alcohol combinations doing some thing to you that some guy saw on an X-Files rerun.
The truth is anyone who’s been drinking for more than 10 years knows exactly why the saying is true. And it has nothing to do with chemistry, aliens, full moons or anything like that. The explanation has come from generations of drunken experience and observation.
Here it is. The definitive answer to the question of life, the universe and everything. Sort of.
Beer then liquor, never been sicker:
Think about the progression of your night as you drink. The first few Heinekens take a while to put down, but as you relax and the alcohol takes effect, it takes a whole hell of a lot less effort to drink each beer. Each new one goes down faster than the previous until you lose count and are just drinking as fast as you can without realizing it.
This is completely fine as long as you stick to beer (Unless the beer is Steel Reserve).
Over the course of the session you’ve increased the rate of consumption, but not the alcohol content of what you’re consuming. However, if you get to that point of rapid consumption and switch to liquor, not only have you increased consumption, you’ve increased the amount of alcohol your taking in by 30-40% per drink. This is where you black out and wake up in someone’s yard naked with one of the most monumental hangovers ever orchestrated by a sophomore P.E. major.
Liquor then beer, have no fear:
Have no fear indeed. This is the preferred M.O. for a night on the town as is the one most associated with getting laid. You start out drinking high-powered courage in a bottle, a.k.a. Jim Beam, which by drink number 4 or 5 gives you the stones to walk up to any coed in the joint and tell her to stay sober because she’s going to be driving you home tonight.
Once you’re good and animated you either start running low on cash or realize that lame line actually might have worked and you switch to beer. Like before, your rate of consumption has increased. However, the amount of alcohol consumed per drink has decreased by 30-35%. You’re essentially weaning yourself from Jim Beam’s vicious teat, thus keeping enough of your wits about you to be able to show the aforementioned coed which driveway to park in and ensuring that the only nasty thing you wake up with is in the bed next to you.
Popularity: 45% [?]
October 7th, 2008 at 11:37 am
The Great American Pig-Out is over! Some ass holes in Washington, like McCain and company decided to panic-spent $700 Billion dollars all in one shot and it scared the shit out of everyone, me too! So now they are going to print up and distribute the dough, thus depreciating the dollar to the point where we will have $14.00 gallon gasoline shortly. The only way to get pissed drunk enough to bear the difference this has made in our lifestyles will be to home-brew our booze, cutting out the middleman and taxes, making it cheap enough to guzzle like our old cars did gas! This “Depression” won’t last long, so take a page from the Russians who are well into the same situation – Get Drunk! Stay Drunk! Stop Producing! and most of all, Stop Reproducing, next they will want your children for war – Fuck Them, not yourself! Use condoms, get a vasectomy, tie your tubes, but stop the evil power brokers and make peace!
October 7th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Like before, you’re rate of consumption has increased.
your, not you’re
October 7th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Sorry about that Marty. I’m usually drinking when I write these. Problem fixed.
October 7th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
To Uncle B,
Dude, seriously. Get over yourself.
And yet – you are another one who has joined the “all conservatives are assholes” bandwagon. Yay. I’m really impressed.
Here’s the deal: it DOESN’T MATTER if the gov’t bails out big corps or not. We all pay for it in the end. AND (he he he) congress was talking about severely limiting the wages of the elite CEOs. You know, cut “Mikey Money’s” salary from 70 mil a year to around $500 g. I can live with that… especially since all the top execs make a TON of money anyway. So maybe they might actually be SAVING us money.
OOPS! I forgot. They can’t because they’re all assholes ;)
******************************************
Anyway, James…. well written! And I would have to say that I agree for the most part. I know that if you are a “good drinker” (as in: you get get really buzzed without getting drunk or changing, you KNOW when you can’t drive home, you almost NEVER get sick, and you aren’t afraid of an alcohol simply because it’s different or not “macho” enough…), you pretty much just drink GOOD alcohol. You stick with the quality stuff and only drink what you know will go well with you.
Of course you’re gonna get sick if you buy a bunch of cheap booze. I can mix and match all night long – in no particular order – as long as it is quality alcohol. SO MANY people miss this. Why get drunk and sick off of stank-brew when you can just cop a very good quality buzz on something a bit more pricey??? The world may never know.
October 7th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
now this riddle of drinking can become a motto for unfortunate and ignorant freshman… although this does eliminate the fun alien part of drinking
October 7th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
sry your not wrong, but ur aslo not right. when u drink hard alcohol, since it is so dense with alcohol in a small amount, there is not enough surface area for it to be absorbed in the intestines because it cannot travel very far in ur body, thats why when you drink beer then hard alcohol, the hard alcohol is diffused into the beer already in your intestines, making the beer basically take the hard alcohol on the fast track to being absorbed throughout your intestines.
October 7th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
To Wrong,
“I’ve heard some of the most complex and well thought out explanations you could imagine. They range from the different alcohol contents combining to create a super drug that intensifies exponentially each hour by the square root of your body weight to various alcohol combinations doing some shit to you that some guy saw on an X-Files rerun.”
Thanks for making my point. And dude, ur tpng on a cmputr, nt a phn:)
October 7th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
However, if you get to that point of rapid consumption and switch to liquor, not only have you increased consumption, you’ve increased the amount of alcohol your taking in by 30-40% per drink.
Fail. One 12 oz beer (5%) = 1.5 oz 40 Proof Liquer
October 7th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Fail. My wife drinks beer with 5% alcohol content and I drink 80 proof liquor mixed 50/50 with whatever. Unless of course it’s scotch. Then I drink it straight.
October 7th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
you dumbass, Obama voted for that shit too.
Every single one of them did except for the very small few that have a little sanity and they did it even though over 600,000 Americans called their offices and demanded that they didn’t
This isn’t about McCain or Obama. Stop fooling yourselves Obama is just as bad as all of them, he’s just good at public speaking
Pathetic. Read something other than the fucking news and you’d know that.
October 7th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
i agree with james… most college age kids are not mixing drinks so that a liquor drink is equal to a beer in alcohol content… the 50/50 is a minimum for homeade drinks and if your even the slightest bit ballin’ then your drinks at the bar are better then 1.5 oz 40 proof liquor….
jonthecomposer is right on the quality of alcohol point since quality alcohol is refined more and processed better to produce an alcohol that will give a better “buzz” with less side effects such as hangovers…
wrong: you will actually diffuse more alcohol into your system by drinking liquor drinks because they tend to be mixed with things that are higher in sugars (glucose) which the body easily breaks down into energy components and absorbs quickly into the blood stream and since these sugars are mixed with the alcohol it will get absorb as quickly where a beer is primarily composed of carbohydrates which are complex sugars which require multiple enzymes and significantly more time to digest and break down before they are absorbed then simple sugars…
October 7th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Pardon my error Fail. One 12 oz beer (5%) = 1.5 oz 80 proof Liquer
October 7th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Spoken like a man with true experience. The only people who will disagree with this post are people who are lame ass nerds, incapable of true heroic drinking. Anyone who has actually made a career out of drinking will agree with you 100%. The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding tastes good. I’m not sure if that saying helps my argument right now, but I am drunk…
October 8th, 2008 at 4:29 am
This analysis is good and moderately successful, although the role that dehydration plays in the “puking your ass of in a strangers house the next morning after you wake up in a place you’ve never seen” phenomenon would be an interesting and useful addition.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:32 am
and I am pretty sure that the role of so called “cogeners” in the hangovers has been shown to be negligable and the myth of such substances creating worse hangovers has been debunked.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:40 am
It’s a myth. If you look up “beer then liquor myth” in any search engine you will see how many hits you get for this being a myth. The reality is that ‘darker’ liquors will cause a hangover. You can drink liquor then beer and be just as sick as you be with beer then liquor. It really doesn’t matter.
http://health.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=113108
http://chernjie.blogspot.com/2006/01/age-old-alcoholic-myth.html
October 8th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
brits go beer than liquor cuz the pubs close so early…
October 8th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
First of all: agreed. Drinking booze to get on the level and then beer to hold it is easy.
Second: Bullshit. I’m 25 and I know exactly when I can drink which drink just by stomach. In general, beer is never a bad idea because you get drunk slower than by booze. Boozetime is when you finished five beer and still can talk about complicated themes (if you want to get drunk). If you want to talk just stick with beer (I’m from Germany, our beer has around 5% so it is sufficient to get drunk if you want but not too heavy to stay sober if you want to drink) or (by learning by doing) skip every 2nd shot the crowd is drinking because most ppl drink too fast…
Third: Learn about yourself and how you react. Whether you count your beers and shots or not is absolutely unimportant. Your bloodalcohol depends on what you eat, how much you slept, what you did before drinking, even on your mood. On a good night I can drink 14 beers (0.5 litres 5%) and walk home straight, on a bad one I drink 3 beers and feel dizzy. Just get to know how you react on booze and how you react on beer. From my experience it’s always good to stay with one drink, changing from beer to booze is a bad idea cause with rising blood alcohol you tend to underestimate each shot.
Fourth: Booze and hangover. In general you can adapt to a certain brand of booze. If you always drink vodka you will exactly know when to stop and you body will adapt to it (talking abut at least a year here). Further there are several brands you should stick to if you don’t want to have a hangover the next morning. Vodka is a good one to start with, Korn is ok, Rum too. Bad ones are all brown boozes and all boozes with strong taste. In general a good vodka is the best booze, it’s fertilized 2 times and you won’t have a too bad breath the next day. I personally prefer Jägermeister but that one makes a very bad breath the next day, on the other hand it’s easy to drink if served cold and doesn’t make a headache the next day.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
@Myth, maybe you should read the sources you post:
“Brad’s results are surprising, but not to Dr Wiese who says there really is no evidence to suggest that mixing drinks and the order in which we should drink alcohol causes a worse hangover. He believes it’s just that you tend to drink more when mixing alcoholic beverages.”
That is exactly what James was saying when he said:
“I’ve heard some of the most complex and well thought out explanations you could imagine. They range from the different alcohol contents combining to create a super drug that intensifies exponentially each hour by the square root of your body weight to various alcohol combinations doing some shit to you that some guy saw on an X-Files rerun.”
And the old adage is meant to mitigate the disposition to drink more as you get more drunk.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
James — nice job! I enjoyed reading this.
However, I’m skeptical. I guess the only way to find out is to spend some time at the bar, in the name of science!!
PS everyone talking about the election — are you lost? This post was about alcohol!!
October 8th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
I just stick with beer, and never….ever..get sober.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
The motto I grew up on which may be easier to remember is ” Liquor before beer your in the clear, Beer before liquor get sicker quicker”
October 9th, 2008 at 12:26 am
Let’s see, lots of people “screw up” the saying and get it backwards, but they swear by it. And here you come saying, “No no, this is how the saying goes, and I swear by it!” Someone is deluding themselves, and I think that someone is anyone who uses a rhyme to determine how not to get shitfaced.
“Drinking rhymes, waste of my time.”
October 9th, 2008 at 2:32 am
i admit that i am an alcoholic. have been in the army substance abuse program (ASAP) 3 times and in abuse dependence and prevention treatment (ADAPT) and graduated all three u may say that obviously the didnt work… u are incorrect the objective is to make you realize the fact that drinking isnt your life and you must make a good effort not to make stupid decisions and prevent them while drinking but none of this has stopped me from drinking whatever the f*ck u want. in any order it is essentially your body mass, metabolism, and tolerance to alcohol nuff said OBAMA 08!!!!!
October 9th, 2008 at 2:32 am
ROFL all 4 my correction
October 9th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
c-4,
Heroic drinking? What’s heroic about drinking? I always assumed the point of drinking was to have fun. Not to compete. Not to be a hero. If you want to be a hero go save a baby from a fire or something.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
What do you mean? I am a professional heroic drinker.
November 10th, 2008 at 1:13 am
You’re all morons. James IS correct. The only thing I have to add is drink in moderation if you don’t wanna get sick.
December 11th, 2008 at 2:56 am
I think you’ve missed two huge points here. All you’ve done is show that going from beer to liquor theoretically increases your alcohol intake (assuming you drink liquor at the same rate you drink beer), getting you DRUNK quicker, but not necessarily SICK. So…that doesn’t prove anything.
The myth stems from the idea that mixing different forms of alcohol will affect you negatively. The fact is, alcohol is alcohol is alcohol, and it doesn’t matter how you drink it or what order you drink it in, it affects you all the same way. How MUCH of it is a different matter.
I debunked this myth long ago on my site: http://www.drinkplanner.com/2008/05/09/ask-drinkplanner-beer-before-liquor/
December 11th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Drink Planner,
(assuming you drink liquor at the same rate you drink beer)
You need to read the post again. The whole premise behind the rule is that when you’re already drunk your rate of consumption increases and then you switch to liquor which increases your alcohol intake substantially. This is what kills you the next morning.
December 11th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
No, I got it. Again, that only gets you drunk quicker, not necessarily sick. You’re making an assumption that people can’t hold their alcohol. While it may be true for some that increasing their rate of consumption will eventually lead to getting sick the next day, it certainly doesn’t prove the myth. The myth again is based around mixing alcohols supposedly being bad for you.
December 11th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Drink Planner,
Ok I see the problem here. You’re calling it a myth and I think it’s a misunderstood rule. I’m not trying to debunk a myth. I’m clarifying a rule. That’s a whole different debate in itself. Actually its a whole nother blog post altogether:) DIBBS!
December 11th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
what a funny picture
January 21st, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Rules?? Drinking strategies?? Self awareness probably covers that – anyone heard of it? Nope? Nice pic though. Pass me another double-fertlized vodka. Now that is a man’s drink – cheers mambo :O)
February 21st, 2009 at 4:53 pm
I’ve never heard of this phrase. But my dad just told me: “If you drink too much, you’ll get sick”
That motto has pretty much kept me safe.
But I like your article anyways
March 31st, 2009 at 8:37 pm
You’ve got it all wrong. You’re overthinking it. Beer before liquor, never sicker. That’s because beer has carbonation. If you stack liquor (a still drink) on top of beer (a carbonated drink) and move around, you’ve created a ticking time bomb. All that carbonation builds up because its smothered by the liquor and eventually, you’ve turned yourself into an alcoholic geyser.
You can trust me, I’ve put YEARS of research into this hypothesis and I have conclusive evidence that this is the reason!
July 4th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
what many people are forgetting is that different types of alcoholic drinks will ultimately affect individuals differently.
i know people who can drink beer after beer after beer and have no issue, but you give them a few shots of whisky and they can’t handle it. personally, i’m the opposite. i could drink two beers and have no buzz at all and wake up with a sick feeling stomach, however i could drink whisky all night and feel fine.
people are different and i simply wish they would pay attention to their own bodies and know what ‘rules’ work well for them.
August 24th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
I’m a professional drinker. If you are going to mix beer and the hard stuff, it is best to drink them together in the beginning, and then switch to just beer later on. You will not get sick. You will be drunk, horny and hungry at closing time, but not sick. Also, beer/hard stuff BEFORE weed. I’m also a professional weed smoker. A 12 pack and then a joint, well, you will have the spins for at least an hour before you finally hurl your cookies. And if you had tripped in the last 5 years, you will get a flashback, with killer colors, for at least 15 minutes. Lie/lay on your back and enjoy your flashback. And then you will hurl. Been there, done that, and more than a few times.
October 12th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Its not really a myth, it does hold validity.
Drink 5 beers and then start taking shots…since your already heavily buzzed, you start POUNDING drinks at incredible rates. Which leads to black outs and general awesomeness.
Than again, quit being a pussy and lets take shots…
(Nice pose btw)
December 7th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
about this hangover stuff.. i know people that drank till they puked before. mixed a couple cups of wine some liquor and a lot of beer and they’ve drank straight liquor and straight dark liquor. but never had a hang over not even a little one. so i would assume that getting a hangover depends on the person. not the kind of alcohol. this would further lead me to know that you need to know your own limits and how your body handles the different types of alcohol and ways its consumed and to not go by someone else’s limits or rules they set for themselves.
January 18th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
I agree 100% “beer before liquor never sicker”
April 25th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
actually it’s “beer before liquor never sicker, but liquor before beer and you’re in the clear.”
you’re obviously not a true drunken pirate.
December 14th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Wine & whiskey make you frisky, whiskey and win youll be fine.
Brandy and jack will make you whack but jack and brandy will make you feel randy.
January 25th, 2011 at 2:54 am
greatly enjoyed this article. humorous and informative, well reasoned.
February 13th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
get drunk, get bitches, stay sober enough to get laid thats the story of the game. You gotta drink enough to have fewer inhibitions but yet stay sober enough to still have game and not fall all over yourself. thats the goal
March 15th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
To all of you that vomit nonsense like, “Its the COLOR of the liquor!” or “Surface tension, blah blah blah!” I’d like to ask you a series of questions that is bound to make you feel perfectly stupid.
1. Have you ever drank until you puked?
2. You had to drink a lot, huh?
3. Have you ever noticed that you drink faster with each glass/bottle/can?
4. Say you’ve had 5 beers. Your 5th went down pretty quick, but your 6th went faster. If your 7th was a 50/50 rum and Pepsi, do you not realize that you would:
A. Drink it faster
B. Be consuming far more alcohol than your 5% beer
C. Inevitably end up puking if you kept going at this rate?
If you disagree with James, you should slap yourself…
Also. Alcohol is alcohol…it looks like this:
H H
| |
H-C-C-O-H <–ETHANOL (the alcohol we drink)
| |
H H
It looks like this in Jack Daniels and it looks like this in Bud Lite. If you think the color of the alcohol is to blame, you're stupid. If you think the alcohol in beer is any less able to be absorbed than alcohol in liquor, you're stupid.
My advice:
A. Buy a book
B. Learn
April 13th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
I’m 16 and have only been drinking a year but when I drink liquor shit spins and makes me feel more nauseous when i’m throwing up, but when I drink beer I see double, this makes me less nauseous and I don’t feel as sick. Is this true for everybody?
June 12th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
This is the best explanation I’ve had and though I’m no freshmen to drinking I’ve had a time or a hundred where I just fuckin forgot which way I was supposed to be drinking …usually because I was just gonna have a beer or two and that turned into I’m gonna have a shot or ten whatever the case …fuck the negative and take the positive
October 16th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Drank 211s..then e&j after yea liquor then beer! Not the other way around u wont remember