Beer before wine and you’ll feel fine, is how the tactical tippler thinks – but the old adage appears to be a myth.
In a less than surprising revelation, researchers found hangovers are just as bad, regardless of what order you drink your drinks.
Scientists gave alcoholic drinks to 90 volunteers in different combinations in a laboratory experiment on two separate nights.
Some were asked to drink two and a half pints of Carlsberg, followed by four large glasses of white wine. A second group started with wine before beer.
Researchers had to control the drunk participants, who were singing and dancing, with a megaphone. They were sent to bed in the lab at 1am.
Participants were asked about their hangover the following day and given a score on a so-called Acute Hangover Scale.
The findings, led by a team at Cambridge University, indicated that no matter how you order your drinks, if you drink too much you are still likely to be ill.
Dr Kai Hensel, one of the researchers, said: ‘The vomiting rate was a little higher than I’d have thought. But they enjoyed it.’
The order you drink makes no difference to your hangover, according to Cambridge scientists
Volunteers were split into three groups, with the first drinking around two and a half pints of beer followed by four large glasses of white wine.
The second group had the same amount of alcohol but in reverse order, and subjects in the third, control group had either only beer or only wine.
The Acute Hangover Scale is based on factors including thirst, fatigue, headache, dizziness, nausea, stomach ache, increased heart rate and loss of appetite.
The volunteers, aged between 19 and 40, were asked about their well being at regular intervals and kept under medical supervision overnight.
‘Using white wine and lager beer, we didn’t find any truth in the idea that drinking beer before wine gives you a milder hangover than the other way around,’ said first author Jöran Köchling from Germany’s Witten/Herdecke University.
‘The truth is that drinking too much of any alcoholic drink is likely to result in a hangover.
‘The only reliable way of predicting how miserable you’ll feel the next day is by how drunk you feel and whether you are sick.
‘We should all pay attention to these red flags when drinking.’
Dr Kai Hensel, a senior clinical fellow at Cambridge University and senior author of the study, said: ‘Unfortunately, we found that there was no way to avoid the inevitable hangover just by favouring one order over another.’
The study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Hangovers occur when drinking large amounts of alcohol have a dehydrating affect, causing thirst, dry mouth and dizziness, as well as low blood sugar, digestive irritation and disturbed sleep.
A pint of standard beer (560ml) would cause you to lose approximately 280ml of extra fluid, which would amount to a large deficit over the course of an evening.
There is a lack of evidence to show an effective method of hangover, with experts generally agreeing on moderation.
The NHS advise men and women not to drink more than 14 units a week on a regular basis – such as weekly – to avoid health risks.
For example, a bottle of lager would contain around 1.7 units, and a large glass of wine around three units.
There is some debate about whether the choice of drink can leave you feeling the effects of a hangover more strongly.
Clear liquors, such as vodka, gin or tequila are arguably less likely to cause a hangover compared to dark-coloured drinks which contain natural chemicals called congeners. These irritate blood vessels and tissue in the brain.
Drinking patters – such as bingeing on the weekend – can generally trigger bad health habits such as a poor diet and oversleeping or ‘social jet lag’.