Most people have experienced this phenomenon in one way or another. Maybe you go out with friends, but are trying to save a bit of money, so you’re ordering well drinks all night while they’re sipping fancy whiskey. The next day, you’re immobilized in bed with a truly horrific headache, but your friends are already out for brunch! What happened?
The truth is, that lower-quality alcohol will give you a worse hangover! However, it is important to note that low quality does not always mean cheap. There are plenty of cheap drinks out there that are not simultaneously low quality, Tito’s Vodka comes to mind. Unfortunately, drinks like Tito’s tend to be the exception to that rule. So why does low-quality alcohol make your hangover worse? Let’s take a look.
During the process of fermentation congeners are created as a byproduct. A congener is, essentially, an impurity. There are hundreds of different kinds of congeners, and some are even non-ethanol alcohols, also known as higher-order alcohol. Those non-ethanol alcohols are really difficult for our bodies to process, which causes are systems to react to them as a poison. Symptoms like a headache, often occur when our bodies are processing a poison.
Now, it is true that since congeners are a byproduct of the fermentation process, that every alcoholic has congeners of some sort. However, since lower-quality alcohol is often made with lower quality ingredients more congeners are created, leading to a much worse hangover.
Higher concentrations of congeners are found in drinks like red wine, whiskey and bourbon, which makes those types of alcohol far more likely to result in a rough morning. If you decide to drink the cheap version of one of those drinks you better have nothing to do the next day.
The other reason low-quality alcohol compounds your hangover system is the purity of the drink. Once a liquid is fermented, it has to be distilled. Each time a liquor goes through the distillation process, more of those congeners and impurities are removed. Tito’s for example is distilled six times, while a well Vodka is generally only distilled twice at most. The more times an alcohol is distilled the more pure it will be, and the more pure your drink is the less impurities and congeners are present, which then leads to a much more productive morning.
So yes, low-quality alcohol will make your hangover worse. This has nothing to do with the price of the booze, but the way in which it was created. If you are looking to save a little money, do your research and find a cheap alcohol that is not low-quality. Your head will thank you the next day.
Of course, if you read this article too late and made the mistake of drinking a lot of low-quality booze, there is still hope! Drink lots of water and try Primer by Intelligent Drinking’s. Primer is filled with vitamins and minerals designed to help your body process alcohol more quickly, lessening the length and severity of your hangover symptoms. Visit www.intelligentdrinking.com for more information.