Does the Order of Drinks Affect Your Hangover?

“Beer before wine and you’ll feel fine, wine before beer and you’ll feel queer” – most of us have heard of this age-old tip, with many even using it whenever they have a few drinks. The basic idea is that having beer after wine will result in a terrible hangover.

However, according to the latest research, the order of your alcohol drinks makes no difference to your hangover. Researchers at Witten/Herdecke University in Germany gave ninety student volunteers a series of drinks and found that they didn’t affect their condition the following day…

Studying hangovers

The ninety students, aged between 19 and 40, were split into three groups and given different alcoholic drinks accordingly:

• Group 1 – drank two and a half pints of lager, followed by four large glasses of white wine
• Group 2 – drank four large glasses of white wine, followed by two and a half pints of lager
• Group 3 (control group) – drank only wine or beer

The following week, participants from groups 1 and 2 were asked to switch groups, drinking the same amounts of alcohol in reverse order, while those in group 3 switched to the alcoholic drink they had not consumed.

Each group were asked to judge how drunk they were at the end of each study day and were kept under medical supervision overnight, to monitor how the alcohol affected each individual.

The results suggest that changing the order of the alcoholic drinks made no significant difference to the participants’ hangovers, which were judged based on a questionnaire. The study also found that it was not possible to predict the affects of a hangover based on age, body weight or drinking habits.

Predicting a hangover

While the exact causes and prevention methods of a hangover are still unknown, the study did suggest that those who vomited whilst drinking were more likely to have a hangover the next day, and the hangover is likely to be more severe.

Not everyone is in agreement, however. Dr Hensel from Cambridge University, claims that ridding yourself of alcohol by vomiting could make you feel better the next day as less alcohol will be absorbed into the body and blood stream. He doesn’t recommend it, though, adding “if you arrive at a point where you need to be sick you’ve probably passed the point of no return”.

If you want to find out more about the science of food and drinks, read the article ‘Foodstuff Production: utilising knife mills to ensure greater analysis accuracy’.