Everyone's heard this classic piece of advice: "Beer before liquor, never been sicker; liquor before beer, you're in the clear." Unlike many pieces of rhyming wisdom, however, there's no real truth to the idea that it's the order you drink things that makes you puke rather than what and how much you actually consume. What other commonly accepted pieces of booze lore are, as Barney Gumble would say, just sweet, beautiful drun![hangover, hungover puking]()
k talk? Read up on these ten drinking myths to find out.
MYTH #1 - TOO DRUNK? HURL IT OUT
It seems pretty straightforward: you realize that you had too much three shots ago; you feel like you've got a stomach full of hot garbage; so you spend some time kneeling and puking in a toilet while reconsidering your life choices, and then you feel better. Clearly you've gotten rid of all that demon rum inside you, so problem solved, right? Not really. Alcohol starts entering your bloodstream as soon as it hits the stomach, so while you might feel a bit more clear-headed after you've barfed yourself inside-out, you're still drunk as hell.
MYTH #2 - BEER HELPS YOU COOL DOWN AFTER A WORKOUT
A dubious study from 2007 is still being passed around as "proof" that a pint of beer is as good as or better than a pint of water for rehydrating after exercise, based mainly on how the body needs the vitamins and carbohydrates beer provides, and that carbonated liquid is more effective at quenching thirst. While the "fizzy drinks make you less thirsty" claim is shaky at best, the idea that beer can replace useful nutrients better than an average sports drink is straight-up crazy. Even the cheapest generic Sports-Ade has fewer calories than the lightest of light beers, and given that beer is a diuretic (science-talk for "it makes you pee"), the hydration benefits are, like so many good things about beer, only a rental.
MYTH #3 - PRE-GAME WITH PAINKILLERS TO BEAT HANGOVERS
NO! No no no, don't gulp a few Tylenol or Advil or anything like that before you go out drinking. For one thing, it's not going to work, since the effective lifespan of over-the-counter painkillers is too short to cover hangovers the next morning. More importantly, combining acetaminophen (Tyle![painkillers and drinking, hangover remedy]()
nol and generics) or ibuprofen (Advil and generics) with alcohol can seriously damage your liver. Acetaminophen can even hurt your guts the day after when you're eating Tylenol to fight your hangover. The healthiest way to get through a hangover is to stay hydrated and tough it out. You're the one who decided to float a keg, so now it's time to face the consequences of that decision.
MYTH #4 - THE LIGHTER THE COLOR, THE LIGHTER THE BEER
It seems logical: a pale-yellow beer that you can actually see through must be lighter in both flavor and calorie content than some sinister black brew like Guinness or Murphy's. Actually, the color and transparency of a given beer really only corresponds to its malt content and flavor, while the "body" and health impact of a beer is usually tied to its alcohol by volume. In fact, most of those dark-and-spooky stouts and porters rarely exceed 5.5% ABV, while many of the most hops-crazed high-gravity IPAs look as pure as yellow snow.
MYTH #5 - THE DARKER THE HOOCH, THE HEALTHIER IT IS
It's a rough rule of thumb that darker-colored wines and beers usually contain more antioxidants than their lighter cousins, but many drinkers have taken that to mean that any "dark" alcohol like whiskey is healthier than "light" alcohol like gin. When it comes to the high-test stuff, that's just not true. Dark liquor may have more antioxidants, but it also contains more congeners, the occasionally toxic byproducts of the fermentation process that (if we're choosing the least worst thing these chemicals can do to you) make hangovers longer and more painful.
MYTH #6 - ENERGY BOOZE GETS YOU DRUNKER
The belief that mixing energy drinks with alcohol gets you plastered faster is so prevalent that it was one of the arguments for banning the high-ABV strain of Four Loko that many of us would remember fondly if high-ABV Four Loko had not damaged the memory center of our brains. The truth is t![Four Loko]()
hat the stimulant in your energy drink counteracts the natural sedative action of alcohol. That sleepy feeling you get after a few rounds is a cue for most people to slow down their drinking, but energy drinks allow you to ignore that signal and keep pounding shots. In reality, you're getting as drunk as you were without the fizzy sugar water, but you aren't likely to notice it until you're messed up enough to overcome the caffeine in your system and/or vomit on a cop.
MYTH #7 - OLDER WINE = BETTER WINE
If you're hanging on to that $6 bottle of Zinfandel hoping that it turns into mystical ambrosia, you're in for a disappointment. Obviously, age plays a huge part in wine if only for how it changes sour grape juice into something awesome, but age is not and should not be its defining characteristic. Almost all wines are meant to be consumed inside a few years of their production, and the ones that really are meant to age require the sort of upkeep (wine cellars, special refrigeration, snooty butlers) that are outside most people's price range.
MYTH #8 - WINE TASTING IS AN EXACT SCIENCE
Worried that the bottle of Chilean Malbec you picked up at the Kwik-Mart isn't going to make the grade at Lord Digby-Vane-Trumpington III's yacht party? Just slap a fancy fake label on there and pretend you had to mortgage your house to buy it, because double-blind taste tests using professional judges have repeatedly shown that the elite world of wine tasting is a bunch of bull. For example, a 2001 study by French wine research institute (because of course there's a French wine research institute) Académie Amorim presented wine tasters with two glasses of the same white wine, only with one made "red" with food coloring. None of the judges realized the two drinks were from the same bottle, and described the "red" and "white" in completely different terms. The moral? Good wine is good wine, regardless of cost or pedigree.
MYTH #9 - FOOD KILLS HANGOVERS
![food hangover remedy, drinking myths]()
It's true that a big meal before heavy drinking will help keep you from becoming as drunk as you might otherwise get, because a full stomach will slow down the absorption of alcohol. Also, people with higher overall body fat can generally drink more than others before feeling drunk. However, if you've come back from an evening of debauchery and you're hoping that scarfing half a pizza from the fridge will soak up all that Jaegermeister, you're out of luck. As stated above, most of the alcohol you've drank has already been absorbed into your system, and piling a bunch of food on top of that is probably just going to make it worse.
MYTH #10 - CAFFEINE/SHOWERS/ANYTHING WILL SOBER YOU UP
Face it--if you're drunk, you're drunk. The alcohol is in your system and it's up to your poor overworked liver to process it, get rid of it, and get you back to being a functional human being. Cold showers or black coffee will make you feel like you're sober, but only in the same way that energy drinks prevent you from realizing that you're drunk. No matter how alert you think you are, you're still dealing with all the physical effects of too much alcohol. If you're still tipsy after a night's sleep, don't endanger yourself or others by trying to do anything you need to be clear-headed to do properly. Give yourself the time to sober up properly, and maybe consider not getting so tore up in the future.
k talk? Read up on these ten drinking myths to find out.MYTH #1 - TOO DRUNK? HURL IT OUT
It seems pretty straightforward: you realize that you had too much three shots ago; you feel like you've got a stomach full of hot garbage; so you spend some time kneeling and puking in a toilet while reconsidering your life choices, and then you feel better. Clearly you've gotten rid of all that demon rum inside you, so problem solved, right? Not really. Alcohol starts entering your bloodstream as soon as it hits the stomach, so while you might feel a bit more clear-headed after you've barfed yourself inside-out, you're still drunk as hell.
MYTH #2 - BEER HELPS YOU COOL DOWN AFTER A WORKOUT
A dubious study from 2007 is still being passed around as "proof" that a pint of beer is as good as or better than a pint of water for rehydrating after exercise, based mainly on how the body needs the vitamins and carbohydrates beer provides, and that carbonated liquid is more effective at quenching thirst. While the "fizzy drinks make you less thirsty" claim is shaky at best, the idea that beer can replace useful nutrients better than an average sports drink is straight-up crazy. Even the cheapest generic Sports-Ade has fewer calories than the lightest of light beers, and given that beer is a diuretic (science-talk for "it makes you pee"), the hydration benefits are, like so many good things about beer, only a rental.
MYTH #3 - PRE-GAME WITH PAINKILLERS TO BEAT HANGOVERS
NO! No no no, don't gulp a few Tylenol or Advil or anything like that before you go out drinking. For one thing, it's not going to work, since the effective lifespan of over-the-counter painkillers is too short to cover hangovers the next morning. More importantly, combining acetaminophen (Tyle
nol and generics) or ibuprofen (Advil and generics) with alcohol can seriously damage your liver. Acetaminophen can even hurt your guts the day after when you're eating Tylenol to fight your hangover. The healthiest way to get through a hangover is to stay hydrated and tough it out. You're the one who decided to float a keg, so now it's time to face the consequences of that decision.MYTH #4 - THE LIGHTER THE COLOR, THE LIGHTER THE BEER
It seems logical: a pale-yellow beer that you can actually see through must be lighter in both flavor and calorie content than some sinister black brew like Guinness or Murphy's. Actually, the color and transparency of a given beer really only corresponds to its malt content and flavor, while the "body" and health impact of a beer is usually tied to its alcohol by volume. In fact, most of those dark-and-spooky stouts and porters rarely exceed 5.5% ABV, while many of the most hops-crazed high-gravity IPAs look as pure as yellow snow.
MYTH #5 - THE DARKER THE HOOCH, THE HEALTHIER IT IS
It's a rough rule of thumb that darker-colored wines and beers usually contain more antioxidants than their lighter cousins, but many drinkers have taken that to mean that any "dark" alcohol like whiskey is healthier than "light" alcohol like gin. When it comes to the high-test stuff, that's just not true. Dark liquor may have more antioxidants, but it also contains more congeners, the occasionally toxic byproducts of the fermentation process that (if we're choosing the least worst thing these chemicals can do to you) make hangovers longer and more painful.
MYTH #6 - ENERGY BOOZE GETS YOU DRUNKER
The belief that mixing energy drinks with alcohol gets you plastered faster is so prevalent that it was one of the arguments for banning the high-ABV strain of Four Loko that many of us would remember fondly if high-ABV Four Loko had not damaged the memory center of our brains. The truth is t
hat the stimulant in your energy drink counteracts the natural sedative action of alcohol. That sleepy feeling you get after a few rounds is a cue for most people to slow down their drinking, but energy drinks allow you to ignore that signal and keep pounding shots. In reality, you're getting as drunk as you were without the fizzy sugar water, but you aren't likely to notice it until you're messed up enough to overcome the caffeine in your system and/or vomit on a cop.MYTH #7 - OLDER WINE = BETTER WINE
If you're hanging on to that $6 bottle of Zinfandel hoping that it turns into mystical ambrosia, you're in for a disappointment. Obviously, age plays a huge part in wine if only for how it changes sour grape juice into something awesome, but age is not and should not be its defining characteristic. Almost all wines are meant to be consumed inside a few years of their production, and the ones that really are meant to age require the sort of upkeep (wine cellars, special refrigeration, snooty butlers) that are outside most people's price range.
MYTH #8 - WINE TASTING IS AN EXACT SCIENCE
Worried that the bottle of Chilean Malbec you picked up at the Kwik-Mart isn't going to make the grade at Lord Digby-Vane-Trumpington III's yacht party? Just slap a fancy fake label on there and pretend you had to mortgage your house to buy it, because double-blind taste tests using professional judges have repeatedly shown that the elite world of wine tasting is a bunch of bull. For example, a 2001 study by French wine research institute (because of course there's a French wine research institute) Académie Amorim presented wine tasters with two glasses of the same white wine, only with one made "red" with food coloring. None of the judges realized the two drinks were from the same bottle, and described the "red" and "white" in completely different terms. The moral? Good wine is good wine, regardless of cost or pedigree.
MYTH #9 - FOOD KILLS HANGOVERS
It's true that a big meal before heavy drinking will help keep you from becoming as drunk as you might otherwise get, because a full stomach will slow down the absorption of alcohol. Also, people with higher overall body fat can generally drink more than others before feeling drunk. However, if you've come back from an evening of debauchery and you're hoping that scarfing half a pizza from the fridge will soak up all that Jaegermeister, you're out of luck. As stated above, most of the alcohol you've drank has already been absorbed into your system, and piling a bunch of food on top of that is probably just going to make it worse.
MYTH #10 - CAFFEINE/SHOWERS/ANYTHING WILL SOBER YOU UP
Face it--if you're drunk, you're drunk. The alcohol is in your system and it's up to your poor overworked liver to process it, get rid of it, and get you back to being a functional human being. Cold showers or black coffee will make you feel like you're sober, but only in the same way that energy drinks prevent you from realizing that you're drunk. No matter how alert you think you are, you're still dealing with all the physical effects of too much alcohol. If you're still tipsy after a night's sleep, don't endanger yourself or others by trying to do anything you need to be clear-headed to do properly. Give yourself the time to sober up properly, and maybe consider not getting so tore up in the future.