Different alcohols, differing effects?

[evilC]

I was talking with Mr & Mrs Mumpo about this, last week. They disagreed with me, but it's a premise I still hold. That is, do you find that certain types (i.e. 'families') of alcoholic drink affect you in certain, more-or-less predictable ways.

Personally, my reactions to alcohols are as follows:

Ale: This gives me a pleasant and mellow 'high', but also makes me sleepy eventually.

Lager: I get more 'excitable'/'intense' on lager - it's certainly not as mellow as ale/bitter. I also usually suffer a bit of a hangover with it. (It also gives one very bad breath, I find, but I don't think there's many drinks that don't.)

Cider: I can't remember precisely, as I haven't had it in years. The reason for that is because it gives me horrible hangovers/nausea. I'm writing it off as a youthful folly.

Wine: I used to like wine, but it doesn't like me. I seem to suffer a definite moodswing under its influence: first I'll be all happy and everything is great, then I'll just go all "Oh my god, my life is shit!" and hide, weeping, in a corner. Thus, I avoid it now.

Spirits and liquers: Hmmm... each of the ones I've discovered I liked I've subsequently overdosed on (i.e. drank almost a whole bottle at a party) and have never been able to face the stuff again. These days I'm also avoiding them. However, I used to enjoy vodka & coke and vodka & lemonade. Those were pleasant, happy 'highs', but the signal to stop was usually when one's nose and/or lips went numb.

So... does anyone else here suffer noticably different effects from different alcohols or, as Mumpo said, is it all much of a muchness for you once you're 'on your way'?

(edit: Invent your own 'categories', of course. Like I said, it's all very much a personal thing. Those were just my general categories.)

[EIM]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Gin makes me cry. Lager makes me burp. Wine makes me fighty.

[evilC]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

EIM wrote:

Gin makes me cry. LAger makes me burp. Wine makes me fighty.

That reminds me, EIM - Mumpo and I were stalking you on Friday evening. Unsuccessfully, of course. Were you in Lancaster, that night?

[Guest]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Rum: Piratey. Seriously, it's full of sugar and I tend to be very energetic and vocal when drinking it. As opposed to say,

Gin: which although very tasty has a tendency to make me a bit miserable when I drink to much of it.

Bourbon: Makes me witty, sexually irresistable, feircly intelligent and highly personable. Subjective experiences of this may vary.

I don't really notice getting drunk on wine, until I'm pissed and saying lots of horrible things to people I hardly know.

[David Agnew]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Most booze affects me the same way, to be honest. I get a bit quiter when I'm drunk, then a bit louder, then I fall asleep.

White wine tends to make me a little sleepy, but seems to invigorate my internal alarm clock. If I need to get up very early, a couple of large glasses of something dry really does the trick.

Normal cider makes me vomit. Has done for years. I was fine on it as a kid, but as soon as I hit my teens I just couldn't drink the stuff anymore. White ciders like K and Diamond White I was okay with, Magners I've tried once, but it made me heave.

I rarely get hangovers. Last one I got (Christmas Eve 1995) involved a free bar, a cocktail making competition, drinking oneself sober in three hours before embarking on a pub crawl.

[EIM]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

evilC wrote:

EIM wrote:

Gin makes me cry. LAger makes me burp. Wine makes me fighty.

That reminds me, EIM - Mumpo and I were stalking you on Friday evening. Unsuccessfully, of course. Were you in Lancaster, that night?

I can't remember. There's a good chance I had a quiet night in. But on the other hand it's entirely possible I was getting leathered in the Stonewell Tavern.

Where did you go?

[evilC]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

EIM wrote:

evilC wrote:

EIM wrote:

Gin makes me cry. LAger makes me burp. Wine makes me fighty.

That reminds me, EIM - Mumpo and I were stalking you on Friday evening. Unsuccessfully, of course. Were you in Lancaster, that night?

I can't remember. There's a good chance I had a quiet night in. But on the other hand it's entirely possible I was getting leathered in the Stonewell Tavern.

Where did you go?

Ummm... The (dubiously-named) Yorkshire House and another you'll have to ask Mumpo about. We ended up at Phoenix Nights. (Sorry Mumpo, but you did make that joke yourself. It was actually good but just sparsely populated.)

[evilC]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Phoebe wrote:

Normal cider makes me vomit. Has done for years. I was fine on it as a kid, but as soon as I hit my teens I just couldn't drink the stuff anymore...

Did you really just say what I think you did? Wow! I only started drinking at 17, although most of my friends had been drinking for about 3 years by then.

...a cocktail making competition...

I forgot about cocktails. Cocktails are great. They make me happy but are so sickly that I rarely overdose on them - a built-in safety mechanism ...of sorts.

[hobbes]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Gin and tonic makes me feel awake and energised, as does bourbon and coke (my dancing drink.) Both make me cheerful.
Beer makes me squiffy and annoying then really dog tired with a thin strip of beligerence between the two.
Wine doesn't get me pissed until I've already had too much. Then I fall asleep. I generally drink wine at home though, so it has different connotations to other drinks. It's a feet-up experience.
Vodka just scares me. It has no taste, so has no purpose except blatting you.
Malt scotch makes me feel all grown up until I start dribbling. (Doesn't take very long.)
Being drunk always makes me want other, stronger intoxicants, or pizza.

[EIM]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

The Yorkshire House is ace. But we've had problems with the service in the recent past, so my mates refuse to go in there nowadays.

[evilC]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

EIM wrote:

The Yorkshire House is ace. But we've had problems with the service in the recent past, so my mates refuse to go in there nowadays.

Oh, really? Yeah - it seemed nice. 'Alternative' in a low-key kind of way. We didn't stay there long enough to have any service-related problems. Anyway, I wish we had such a decent pub (i.e. alternative-tolerant and with good ales) where I live.

[Gangster Octopus]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Bit noisy for me, and child unfriendly, but otherwise not too bad.

[WOM]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Gangster Octopus wrote:

Bit noisy for me, and child unfriendly, but otherwise not too bad.

What....Clive, or the pub?

[Gangster Octopus]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Tee hee hee

[meregreen]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Lager makes me jolly, chatty, raucous, garrulous and then I try and stop before I become belligerent.
Wine accompanies food, and telly and online poker and most things I do at home and leaves me feeling pleasantly drunk in a fuzzy, tingly way.
Whiskey and brandy make me mellow and introspective and lead to awful hangovers, but are just about worth it for that warm tingling taste you get when it reaches your throat and the almost instantaneous hit you get when you imbibe.
Tequila shots give me an amphetamine-like boost and are the closest drink to drugs I've had and a fun way to get drunk quick.

[evilC]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

WornOldMotorbike wrote:

Gangster Octopus wrote:

Bit noisy for me, and child unfriendly, but otherwise not too bad.

What....Clive, or the pub?

Funny and accurate - excellent!

-

[WOM]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

"She said I’m going out with my girlfriends
Margaritas at the Holiday Inn
Lord have mercy, my only thought was
Tequila makes her clothes fall off"

[Wyatt Earp]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

This murder of my beloved English language is getting under my nails. There are, of course, other branches of charnel-house fun into which I have not yet had the courage to lead my readers. Not quite clichés but things that smell the same and worse. Far worse. Things like this, I mean:
Of course, gin is a very depressing drink.
The air in Bundoran is very bracing.
You'll see the whole lot of us traveling by air before you're much older.
Your man is an extraordinary genius.
Of course, the most depressing drink of the lot is gin.

Did you get what I'm driving at? Can you visualize the list of dirty pale goading phrases with which I may--yes--"regale" you next week? What?
I beg your pardon?
Well that isn't my fault. I merely record what goes on around me. I just write down what goes on.

Myles na Gopaleen

[Guest]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Christ, Flann O'Brien disagreed with my personal experience. I guess I'd better ignore it then and try to be cool.

[Taylor]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Used to love red wine, but it gives me a headache now.

Gin and tonic is nice, but the shift from "drunk" to "too drunk" happens a bit abruptly.

The really nice drinks like pear cider or cocktails or Pimms and lemonade are great for a while, but then I feel like my teeth and stomach and brain are suspended in sugar solution, all sticky and rapidly rotting away. No better for extended sessions than sloe gin.

I love brandy, but it makes me do stupid things. I don't get violent, but I can easily become rude / reckless / sexually inappropriate if I overdo it.

Jamaican white rum is fantastic, but again, I can get a bit edgy if I have too much. Although that might be because my big Wray and Nephew phase coincided with my "snorting loads of base before going out" phase. Unhappy days.

Which is why I'm back on lager, now my gluten intolerant stomach has calmed down a bit. I end up smiling beatifically, or engaged in very animated conversation about some old crap. Then hungry, then sleepy. Perfect. Worst thing that's going to happen is that I bore the shit out of someone, but that's a constant worry so it doesn't make much difference.

The only drink I will never allow myself to touch again is a self-invented sort-of-cocktail which I drank for a while in the mid-90s: glasses of white wine with triple vodkas poured in. It certainly did its job, in terms of getting me very drunk very quickly, but I almost killed a few people, and very nearly got arrested more than once. There's also the fact that waking up after drinking six of those is like being a human volunteer for chemical weapons testing. Except worse, because five minutes later you think "oh hang on... oh no... OH NO... oh fuck, I DIDN'T, did I?" Not a friendly tipple.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Tequila turns me into a committed nudist.

Everything else makes me happy, then gobby, then sends me to sleep. I'm a pretty predictable drunk, as it goes.

I stick to lager, it's easier.

[delicatemoth]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Vodka used to make me extremely attractive for some reason - I would always pull, and always be too out of it to do much about it. Also the only booze where I have ever woken up to find a piece of my memory missing - not hazy and jumbled recollections but part of my life neatly excised. I might actually be thinking of vodka/white wine or vodka/champagne cocktails here.

Ale makes me jolly and straightforward, unless I have too much of it. Then I'm jolly and incomprehensible.

Gin mellows me out.

Crap booze makes me tetchy.

[Glass Half Empty]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Decent real ale over a prolonged period say 3 before a match 3 or 4 after a match always makes me sleepy at which point I change to Newcastle Brown Ale which, without fail wakes me up.

I only drink Lager if there is no decent ale and then never more than 2 or 3 so I've never really judged it as a mood maker.

My favourite spirit is rum, which is a nice warmer upper and makes me pretty lively as well. Brandy calms me down, although I only tend to drink it late on so it might be that I just conk out.

Wine drinking can make me morose although these days I usually drink sparkling and makes me very jolly and full of energy.

[Sam]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

Cider I can cope with just fine, it having been my pint of choice since I started drinking. I'm not a massive drinker anyway, and it's easy to gauge with pints.

Red wine I'll have with a meal, or if I'm seeing certain friends after a while of not having seen them. It makes me talkative and philosophical. Well it makes me talkative. I'm always philosophical. It gives me a bit of a heavy head the next day if I have too much of it, but that seldom happens.

Rum is nice, and I can deal with it on its own or in a mixer, but if I have any of it after having had even the smallest amount of any other alcohol in the hour or so beforehand, it makes me really ill. Not drunk - it just turns my stomach completely.

Tequila the Mexican way is a different experience to most of the tequila tales I've heard from people who've drunk it in their student days here etc. (I'd never had it before I met my friend's Mexican wife). I like it now and then and it doesn't do anything too drastic to me hangover-wise.

Fernet is worst. A glass of fernet on its own gets you progressively - and noticeably - more drunk with each sip. Mixed with coke (how the Argentines drink it) you can't feel it getting you drunk at all. You feel completely and totally sober. It doesn't even make you piss. The effect of this is that you get really quite severely drunk before standing up from your group of friends and promptly walking sideways into the wall.

The worst hangover I've ever had was during Festes de la Mercé in Barcelona two years ago. I can't remember exactly but it was something like two caipirinhas, one rum and coke, one fernet and coke when I realised the second bar I'd walked into had the stuff, one neat fernet (it was after leaving that bar that my the alcohol finally made itself felt in my legs), and then with a bunch of Venezuelan and Colombian students I befriended, a bit of neat rum. This was all washed down with a bit of whisky and coke. Well I say a bit. We got back to their flat in a group of 8 or 10, they had a half-full 2.5 litre bottle of Coca Cola, decided to top it up with whisky (the mix was 50/50), and then asked who wanted some and it was only me and two other guys who felt like it. Between the three of us we'd got through about half of it after roughly a twenty-minute walk.

I'm still not quite sure how this happened to this day, but I was sober enough to not only remember that my hostel had a curfew and realise I needed to leave right then to get back before it, but also to actually get there and get into bed without hurting anything. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow at about 3am, and woke up at 5pm wishing I hadn't done.

I'm doing Mercé again this year, but I won't be repeating that.1

[jason voorhees]

Different alcohols, differing effects?

mrs. v is allergic to alcohol, (one sip basically gets her buzzed, drunk, wasted, and hungover in 10 minutes,) however she can drink port without too much of a problem. Basically one glass only, but it's so much more than normal.

I've always found the cheaper beer made me crazy, while homebrew or the real heavy good shit puts me right to sleep.

Lately I've been making daquris with $5 Taaka Vodka, $6 Castillo Rum, and frozen pineapple/mango/peach in a blender. It's made me drunker and spaced out than anything I've ever drank, without the ill effects of getting sloppy or sick.

Either of those bottles on their own would have me hurling, and not the Irish sport kind.

But yes, it's quite obvious different alcohols have different effects. Different cheap beers have different effects - start with that.