Ethanol may be the active ingredient that keeps bartenders in business, but there is often speculation as to whether mixers effect our immediate intoxication or the morning after. Does what we consume with our drinks help us to process alcohol, or should we always ask for it neat?
The Straight Talk
Intoxication is largely based on our bodies’ ability to absorb and detoxify ethanol, so it makes sense that anything that can prevent the absorption will slow its effects, and anything that speeds this process will result in our becoming drunker faster. In addition to the obvious things that affect this process—drinking on an empty stomach, drinking at a fast rate, being fatigued, to name a few—it turns out that the type of mixer does matter, at least a little, in our ability to remain standing at the end of a night.
Carbonation
Champagne is notorious for going to the head faster than other alcoholic beverages and a recent study, published in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, may help explain why. The researchers gave 21 people three different concoctions: straight vodka, vodka with water, and vodka with carbonated water. Using a breathalyzer, the researchers found that subjects absorbed the diluted alcohol drinks at a faster rate than the pure alcohol, and that they absorbed the carbonated drink the fastest.
Why is that? It seems that the bubbles in carbonated beverages help speed gastric emptying, which is the process of food leaving the stomach and entering the small intestine. Since the majority of alcohol enters the bloodstream from the small intestine, increased gastric emptying means a faster rate of alcohol absorption, which means feeling tipsier, earlier. Without food to help delay absorption, carbonated drinks will move even quicker to the bloodstream.
Smoking
Though technically not a mixer, smoking and drinking often go hand in hand, and most “social smokers” do so when having drinks or when they’re at a bar. But do the two vices have any effect on each other?
Evidence indicates they do. A small study in the British Medical Journal measured gastric emptying and blood alcohol levels, with and without smoking. The results found that cigarette smoking slows gastric emptying and thus, delays alcohol absorption.
