Questions about alcohol

[Brendan]

A couple of things have been bothering me lately.

Firstly: Why do different types of booze make you different types of drunk? The active ingredient is ethanol. Normally to the same sort of percentage depending on which class the beverage belongs to, i.e. beers, wines, spirits or rubbing alcohols. So why do the effects differ so greatly?

Wine drunk is different to beer drunk is different to whisky drunk is different to whiskey drunk is different to absinth drunk is different to tequila drunk is different to gin drunk is different to vodka drunk etc. ad nauseam.

So you have 40%, 15% or 5% ethanol or thereabouts in a drink, then probably quite a high percentage of the remainder will be water and the rest is just left over fruit juice and trace elements picked up from barrels and dead bugs. How can that those left overs contribute so significantly to the type of effect the ethanol has?

What the fukis going on there man?

Secondly: Why does beer taste so much better out the bottle than from a keg or a can? Does the aluminium make it taste crap or does the glass make it taste better?

[StraferJack]

properly kept draught beer > bottle beer > can beer

bottle beer > can beer > badly keptdraught beer

BUT

bottle beer = insanely stupidly expensive by comparison

[Jeremy]

Maybe cos when you drink beer, you're drinking a lot of liquid because it's comparatively weak. So you don't get as dehydrated as you would if you drank two bottles of red.

[Ted Max]

The bloke that wrote this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Longest-Crawl-Ian-Marchant/dp/0747577145 (which contains some short social history of alcohol type stuff) reports that 20% abv is reckoned to get you pissed the quickest. That is, it's the optimum strength for absorption into blood or some such. Sounds dodgy to me.

But on that reckoning, fortified wines like sherry would get you trollied the quickest. That's why vicars, university dons and my mum drink it. They know, you see.

[Dee Woffaz]

Explains why i cant remember much of my youth, think thunderbird was 17.5% ooh eewww yech at the thought.

On the same vein(alcohol filled)why do some drinks give you alcomnesia and others you can be totally bladdered on and remember the whole night the next day in mortified horror?

[Brendan]

2 bottles of red contain about 20 ethanols or ?units of alcohol? to use the term that the BBC uses to make us feel bad about ourselves. The equivalent beer ethanols would be about 8 or so pints and the equivalent vodka ethanols would be about 1 pint.

After 2 bottles of red I want to talk to next door?s dog about philosophy.

After 8 pints of beer I want to listen to NOFX and kick things.

After a pint of vodka I want to fuck on a crashing plane.

There is no similar difference in my moods when I eat a bunch of grapes as opposed to a loaf of bread or a potato. It is all very perplexing.

[Dee Woffaz]

& why is it that after a skin full you never fancy an apple?

[Drxyster]

Does this explain how, one never goes to bed with an ugly one, but often wakes up with one ????

[Mick Mac]

I think you are right to be worried Brendan.

And I think you are the right man to get to the bottom of this.

[Frankito]

Beer googles, the curse of the modern day man.

[Alan Medic]

You wouldn't mean goggles would you Frankie?

[maxxi]

Beer Googling - a brand new term referring to the crap you think is interesting - and so insist on posting links to - when 3 sheets to the wind but which, when viewed in the harsh noonday light, turns out to be so dull it's ugly.

[Frankito]

Shoot.... I can't blame fat-fingering for that...! Thanks conscience. >:D

[maxxi]

Frankito Wrote:

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> Shoot.... I can't blame fat-fingering for that...!

snork snicker phnarr!

Please, we're supposed to be grown ups.

[Frankito]

Dear lord, this is a family forum...>:D<

More more more!!

[maxxi]

Re the serious OP, I have heard all these statements on booze in the past:

"I can't drink whisky - it makes me 'fighty'"

"If I drink red wine I fall asleep"

"Gin turns me into a loony"

"If I get drunk on cider I could be missing for days"

"Another couple of these and I'll need a kebab"

"Guinness gives me a rotten headache"

Eventually I bought her a Malibu.

[Frankito]

Red wine makes me confrontational - fact..

[Salsaboy]

Oh yeah? Wanna step outside and discuss it?

Frankito Wrote:

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> Red wine makes me confrontational - fact..

[Frankito]

Let me finish this glass and game on boy-o. No more tango for you when I am done. >:D

[Annette Curtain]

It's the bubbles that make some of the difference

Champagne is around 12.5% abv yet it makes you drunk quickly. Apparently (and without googling it) the small micro bubbles of carbon make the stomach process the champers in a different way to still wine, so it passes it through the gut / digestive system quicker.

Result; you get very tipsy, very quickly.

This might also explain why beer, though lower in alcohol, goes through the system quickly too.

If you have vodka & a fizzy mixer, it probably brings the abv of the whole drink down to near 20%, which is the optimum absorption level.

As for drinking straight spirits like Whisky. Well you are fekkin mad and deserve everything you get.

NETTE:)-D

[Dee Woffaz]

Guiness makes your poo black. ;-)

[Dee Woffaz]

Anyone else suffer from UDI's.......... Unidentified drunken injuries, ive had bruises, cuts and even a break, all discovered the next day of such severity im sure i would have remembered recieving them.:-S

[Brendan]

Black poo and broken bones are all very amusing but they have not answered my questions now have they?

Well?

Have they?

eh?

I want? Nay I demand! Science! n? shit.

[mockney piers]

I remeber reading that alcohol irritates the pyloric sphincter causing it to stay shut.

You absorb alcohol quite slowly when it's in the stomach. Eventually it will open and let it all in at once in to the duodenum where it absorbs much faster.

The stronger the alcohol the more likely that this will happen.

This struck such a chord when I read it because it seemed to explain that express train whack of drunkenness you get after a few cocktails or G&Ts.

This also explains why you should eat food before drinking as that prevents the irritation, and why Champagne (or drinking through a straw) gets you drunk quicker as the bubbles can apparently tease the sphincter (tee hee) open.

Anyway, none of this helps with your original question, which I have to say I've often pondered myself.

Southern comfort is the worst sort of drunkenness there is. Normal whisky I find a bit depressive if you have more than a few (its the one drink I'm really good at managing moderation with). Cider makes me go a bit loopy in a way that beer doesn't really do too.

[Dulwichmudlark]

u get differnt drunks (or highs) from the chemical make up of each drink