It is popular that it is better to use drinks made from similar raw materials during a party - this will help to avoid a hangover in the morning. We checked whether this advice corresponds to modern research.

In 2017, Lenta.ru in the selection "Truth under the degree" I wrote: “Experts categorically do not recommend mixing what is made of different raw materials, such as wine and whiskey, port and beer, sake and vodka. <...> Therefore, you should not experiment with combinations at least for your own health. ” Then, on the website of alcoholic stores "Fragrant World" appeared management About the permissible "alcoholic unions." The trading network insists that one of the main “principles of compatibility” is the use of drinks from the same type of alcohol: for example, grain (beer and vodka), grape (wine and cognac), etc. There is also a stereotype that you can mix drinks of different origin, but in a certain order: for example, in English there is proverb Beer Before Wine and You'll Feel Fine; Wine Before Beer and You'll Feel Queer (“Beer Before wine - you will feel good, wine in front of beer - get drunk”).

It was this proverb that a group of German doctors and scientists decided to check. In 2019 they Published The results of his study on how the hangover differs depending on the use of a particular combination of drinks. The authors of the project took 90 people aged 19 to 40 years to participate in it and distributed them in three groups, the composition of which was similar in middle age, weight, height and alcoholic habits. In all groups, there were approximately equally men and women.

The study was divided into two stages. On his first day, all the participants in the experiment ate tightly, and then moved to alcoholic beverages. One group first drank about 1.3 liters of beer (5%), then - 0.6 liters of white wine (11%), the other - first wine, and then beer in the same volumes, the third (control) - either about 1.2 liters of wine, or about 2.6 liters of beer. By the end of the evening, all participants in the study had to reach the BRAC (Breath Alcohol Concentration) indicator of 0.11%. In the process of drinking alcohol, they talked about their well -being, and the next day they sent scientists reports on how a hangover flowed.

During the week after the first day of the study, its participants refused to use any alcohol. Then the procedure was repeated, but changed the order of drinks. So, the first group drank first wine, and then beer, the second group - first beer, then wine. Members of the third group, on the first day, only drinking wine, switched to beer, and vice versa. The volumes of the drunk and the expected degree of intoxication remained the same, similarly, the participants in the study talked about their condition during the “feast” and the next day.

Further, the researchers analyzed how the experiment participants described their feelings after two days of alcohol consumption. It turned out that regardless of whether one or two drinks drank experimental, the acuity of the hangover was approximately the same. There was no significant difference between groups that alternate beer and wine in different ways. Scientists did not find a strict dependence between the degree of intoxication of a person (BRAC) and how sharp a hangover was - according to researchers, the personal physiological characteristics of a person can have a significant impact.

Although the authors recognize the restrictions on their study, similar works devoted to other pairs of drinks, we could not find. Probably, if in the study they appeared, for example, wine and vodka or beer and cognac, its results differed from those obtained, but it is not yet known for all this. Specialists They thinkthat a hangover, due to a decrease in a degree, can rather be explained not by the incompatibility of alcohols, but by loss of control: after a strong drink, a person is worse realized by the level of a beer or wine fortress and stops following the amount of drunk.

This is not for sure

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. J. Köchling et al. Graph or Grain Buter the Twain? A Randomized Controlled Multiarm Matched-Triplet Crossover Trial of Beer and Wine
2. Yu. Sivolap. Useful dose of alcohol? Female alcoholism is incurable? Scientists against myths
3. Is it true that in antibiotic treatment you can not drink alcohol?