A primary drinking lesson everyone hears at least once is
“Beer before liquor, never sicker. Liquor before beer, in the clear." Translation: If you start out the night with the hard stuff, you won’t be hungover the
next day and/or vomit that night. Unfortunately, booze is booze and no matter what
you drink, if you drink too much, you will get a hangover. Scientifically
speaking, that is.
A serving of booze (12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, and 1.5 ounces of hard liquor) contains about 14 grams of alcohol. There’s no magical composition of the different drinks that sit better
in your stomach in a certain order. All will get you drunk at the same rate and
even different types of liquor all have the same effect on the body. Tequila does not make
you crazier than gin, for example.
German scientists recently put this theory to the test with
beer and wine. They gathered together students of similar age and size and had them eat a big meal. After, one half of the group drank beer followed by wine and the other half vice versa, all to the same breath alcohol concentration (about six drinks
each). The next week, they switched the order of
drinks. The results in the two groups were identical; there was no
correlation between hangovers and order of drinks.
But if there’s a shred of truth to this myth, it lies not in
body chemistry, but behavior. The Drunk Pirate explains this rule is often very misunderstood. It doesn’t mean the alcohols mix in your stomach in a certain
way to cause a reaction. Instead, when you're out drinking and start with a
nice, slow beer, your good judgment begins to waver. When you switch to knocking back liquor, you end up a lot drunker than you
meant to be. If you start with the liquor and switch to a big beer that you
sip, you’re less likely to overdo it at the end of the night. Maybe that is
true, but the moral of the story seems to be that moderation is key; learn how not to overindulge. Pace yourself
so that the next morning isn’t too painful.
TL;DR: It doesn’t matter what you drink. Just go easy on the
sauce.