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ForMented: Beer Before Liquor or Liquor Before Beer?
Which one's a ticket to hangover central? We test out both theories
September 14, 1999
Right now, I feel like someone backed a Ford Expedition over my head (hmmm -- that explains all the errors in your text -- Editor). My buddy and I were discussing our favorite spirits when conversation revolved to that age-old maxim of "Beer before liquor, never sicker" (or is it ever sicker), or "Whisky before beer, always fear." Although we both claimed to be THE authority on the matter, neither of us really had the first clue what we were talking about. So we consulted a bartender called Donna, and she knew about as much as we did. Reality was staring us down like it was last call so there was only one sure way to find out the truth. We had to test all theories, hence my headache.
Correct: Liquor Before Beer, Never Fear
The above statement is true. Our experience was that if you drink hard liquor in whatever form -- we chose shots of Jack Daniels -- you can and must only trade down. If you remember that simple rule, you'll avoid horrific hangovers and only experience slightly devastating ones. For instance, one should never start drinking Rum and Cokes and then graduate to tequila, moonshine, or methanol. This will not only make you sick, you could go blind.
The same is true if you start drinking beer and decidd it's time for that shot of Jim Beam. They'll mix in your stomach like skinheads at a Public Enemy concert.
Now, if you start off with the hard stuff and work your way down, your body will, for some reason, be far more forgiving of the abuse.
There are some variations of the rhyme that all basically say the same thing and all are correct by our testing.
"Beer before liquor, ever sicker"
"Beer before Whiskey, kinda risky"
"Whiskey before beer, never fear"
But the thing is, they're so damn hard to remember, let alone get straight, it's no wonder I eat more Tylenol than wheat bread. So broken down into a drunkard's terms, it looks something like this (you might want to write this on your hand or your passed out friend's forehead):
BEER + WHISKEY = BAD or WHISKEY + BEER = GOOD
False statements include:
"Beer before Whiskey, never risky"
"Liquor after Beer, never fear"
"Liquor after wine, always fine."
"Whiskey after beer, in the clear."
Booze and Food
Many will tell you that you can always find the right spirits to compliment any meal, provided you're not sucking on a frozen Salisbury steak. Every person's tolerance differs, but generally speaking, there are a set of rules the human digestive system loosely adheres to.
Correct: Wine While you Dine, Always Fine
This is true to an extent. If, for instance, you choose to down a magnum of "Red Table Wine" with your mayonnaise and garlic salt sandwich, uh, bad things will happen. Trust me. I've done this. I implore you, do not go down this road.
The tricky thing is to correctly match your wine to your food. I know it sounds pretentious, but there is actually method to a yuppie's madness. The closest I can come to figuring out why some wine goes with some foods is color scheme. You drink red wine with red meat because if or when you later vomit, it'll all match and generally be the same color. The same is true for white wine and fish. The mosh pit in your stomach has a pleasant pastel hue to it. When possible, I've also found it nice to match the wine to your furniture, so when you spill it and/or vomit on it, it'll all sort of match. Plaid or paisley couches present obvious dilemmas. Matching your choice of wine to your clothes or date's dress is also a good idea.
False: Tequila Before you Dine, Always Fine
Whoever came up with this maxim should take a bath with a toaster. As a general rule, tequila mixes with few things and food is not one of them. Lime, salt, ice, triple sec and blondes in short skirts work fine, but throw in meatloaf or anything pickled and you're asking for trouble. We encourage tequila consumption. Fair enough, it does kill brain cells, but only the ones that cause shame, good judgment and humility and we all know those are feckless human traits.
Correct: Beer Before Wine, Never Fine
This is up for debate. My experience with this combined order was not so agreeable. My buddy was perfectly fine, but he's a complete lush with all sorts of personal problems. Don't ask.
After consuming three Bass Ales followed by three glasses of white wine, I simply fell asleep on the couch only to wake up a few hours later very sober and with a big, fat headache. The problem compounds if you try to sleep it off. See, the alcohol breaks down in your body and turns to sugar, so sleep is pretty much rife with impossibility. Solution: Bite the bullet and start drinking again. At this point, anything you can get your hands on will do.
Some other things that rhyme but will probably cause irreparable bodily harm:
Rum Before You Run, Always Fun
This is obviously stupid on the same level of drinking gasoline. Unless you're running from the police or a jealous boyfriend, drinking and exercise are a no no.
Gin While you Sin, Always Win
This was given to me by a bartender who thought he was really clever. I found him to be really annoying, trite and dull-witted. No tip for him.
Now that I think about it, most of these "clever" little sayings mean dick. A large part of drinking is acknowledging the fact that reason and better judgement are a vapor trail. Who's going to sit there and think, "wait, I better not have that shot since I've already downed a couple beers?"
So in a sense, we're right back where we started. And Monday morning I'll have a different headache. Damnit! I think Homer Simpson said it best when he raised his mug of Duff and toasted:
"To alcohol, the cause and solution to all of life's problems."
-- John Newlin loves the nightlife and likes to boogie.
IGN ForMented want you to enjoy booze responsibly. Leave the rough stuff to us.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Defense Department sold equipment to the public that can be used for making biological warfare agents, according to a draft report by the General Accounting Office.
The Defense Department agency responsible for the sale of excess property to the public, the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service, halted the sale of such items September 19 while the practice is reviewed.
"Many items needed to establish a laboratory for making biological warfare agents were being sold on the Internet to the public from DoD's excess property inventory for pennies on the dollar, making them both easy and economical to obtain," the GAO draft report said.
"As requested, GAO established a fictitious company and purchased over the Internet key excess DoD biological equipment items and related protective clothing necessary to produce and disseminate biological warfare agents."
The GAO is the investigative arm of Congress.
A congressional source said the GAO front corporation was able to buy evaporator, incubator and centrifuge equipment that can be used to produce biological warfare agents.
It also bought 300 to 400 protective suits required for the production of biological agents, the source said.
The fictitious GAO company spent "a little over $4,000" for equipment that the Defense Department originally bought for some $46,000, according to the source and the report.
"That's less than 10 cents on the dollar," the source said.
Much if not all of the equipment sold to GAO investigators is available to the public at full price on the open market, the source said, but "we certainly don't need DoD to be a discount shop for potential bioterrorists."
He conceded that "only nominal controls" are now in place to prevent the sale of such items to the public, but at least those sales are "not with the U.S. government seal of approval [and] for pennies on the dollar."
The GAO investigation was requested by the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, which is a unit of the Government Reform Committee.
"According to the GAO, due to poor controls, there is little assurance excess [chemical-biological] equipment has not already fallen into the wrong hands," a subcommittee statement said.
The statement said some of the protective suits "had previously been identified by DoD as defective," but they "were still circulating in the surplus supply chain."
An unknown number of defective suits were issued to state and local law enforcement agencies before being returned to the Defense Department to be disposed of, according to the statement.
The congressional source said those suits should not have been resold under any circumstances.
The subcommittee will hold a hearing on the matter Tuesday with testimony from Pentagon officials, GAO investigators and a chemical-biological weapons expert.