Mixed Up: Drinks Or You? Myths of Mixing Alcohol & Hangovers

One too many tipples the night before and you find yourself woken up to the not-so-friendly, aching knocks in your head— “Ugh, another hangover headache... not again…” While we pine through the pain, grasping desperately for some debauched yesternight memories to salvage some savagery, we once again fall back to looking for any explanation that would reduce, or better yet, absolve our guilt. 

“Confirm ‘cause last night mix alcohol... “ - You, the morning after (probably). Image courtesy of 123RF.com. 

“I shouldn’t have mixed my alcohol” so runs a very common and age-old reason we confide in. This reasoning came to the party table no doubt through sayings like “grape or grain, but never the twain”, cautioning us to having both our wines and beers in a sitting, and where order matters: “Beer before liquor, never been sicker. Liquor before beer, you’re in the clear”. Yet, how true is this a cause of our headaches? Does mixing alcohol cause headaches and bad hangovers? Evidence debates.

Cause of Headaches

Beyond the anecdotes, a review published in 2000 affirmed that the headache and nausea we experience during a hangover are due to dehydration, hormonal changes, and toxic effects of alcohol itself. Amassing the scant literature thus far narrows two main culprits: Quantity of alcohol consumed, and beverage compounds known as congeners.

Level of High

It is no stranger that the higher you go on the alcohol saturation scale, the faster you get intoxicated. Yes, we are talking about alcohol content here, fellow liquor fanatics. Ethanol, the main makeup of all drinkable alcohol, is a vasodilator and natural diuretic. That is to say, alcohol disrupts the ionic and metabolic balances in your brain while encouraging the excretion of water from your body, inevitably alongside minerals, salts, and vitamins. Hence, we get to hit our “highs” as well as the loo— not low; you read it right. 

What Research Says 

According to BBC, mixing different types of alcohol does not cause headaches but it is the quantity that matters. A healthy body eliminates 1 standard drink (10 grams of alcohol) per hour, so the alcohol content and the speed at which you drink, is what sets you up for regret. This is however just an average, with a Danish study finding that almost a third of its participants did not experience a hangover after consuming at least 12 units of alcohol (i.e., 4 glasses of 250ml, 12% ABV wine). 

Nevertheless, there is no escaping the wrath of excessive consumption. Some of us get the throbs even before a sleep, as the International Headache Society states, cocktail headaches usually set in within 3 hours of alcohol consumption and resolve only after 72 hours. Ironically, the name “cocktail headache” itself might have been a misleading nudge in how we derived the association of mixed alcoholic beverages and headaches, which we now know is not all that true.

Congeners

Aside from ethanol, substantial research has condemned congeners as a major cause of headaches. During the alcohol manufacturing process, substances produced known as congeners—which includes acetaldehyde, acetone, and tannins— were found to cause or worsen hangovers. 

Darker drinks (e.g. whisky, brandy, and red wine) get their colour and flavour in part from tannin, which is less present in your clear alcohols (e.g., gin, white wine, vodka). Bourbon was found to contain up to 37 times more congeners than vodka, and brandy was identified to contain higher levels of congeners than whisky and red wine. 

Bourbon VS Vodka

In a recent US study, researchers found that participants who drank bourbon rated their hangover worse than those who had vodka. While your dark-coloured alcohols reportedly contain more antioxidants, the next time you get a terrible migraine headache or hangover, you may want to consider opting for the lighter liquids in your next session.

Strength of Judgement

Taken together, the mixing of drinks may not entirely be a good idea as it weakens your strength of judgment, but not so much as a cause of your headaches. For instance, it gets more difficult to track the number of standard drinks you have had, especially with beverages with an unspecified amount of alcohol like in cocktails. 

Where the orders are concerned, having beer before wine can be a slippery slope as you might experience the kick belatedly, and having wine before beer might have already interfered with your decision-making ability. However, there have not been any counter-balanced studies to date to justify any grape-grain order. 

Energy Drinks

Interestingly, substantial research has highlighted the adverse effects of mixing your alcohol with energy drinks (e.g., alcohol mixers). The real kicker? Drink mixes are more often available in larger social celebrations, and are simply one of the best tools in helping us have a blast. Unfortunately, blast could mean two entirely different things here; both immense fun as well as a mind-blowing headache the morning after. Sad face.  

The Solution to Headaches & Hangovers

In all, it is a shame to steer away from a good ole cocktail or deny yourself the luxury of choice with the headache blame-game. The true antidote to the problem of headaches and hangovers, is to prevent its occurrence in the first place through controlling the amount of alcohol consumed. A parting shot: the next time you go imbibing, remind yourself of control and congeners before you get mixed up— quite literally.