Why do alcohols made from different plants affect us so differently?

I think it’s confirmation bias. The same reason why a football player “always” wins games when he wears his “lucky” sock, except of course for those he looses.

I admit I’m not an expert, so there could be a valid scientific explanation.

I think all alcohol affects us the same. Maybe other parts of the beverage do different things to us. Like some people get headaches from red wine. I think we drink certain drinks in certain situations, and that is part of the reason. Some people assume hard alcohol will affect them differently than beer, but there is no logical reason why it should from what I can tell.

@gorillapaws eh i dont know. I’ve been drinknig wine all night and im not my normal drunken self im a giddy mess. I dont normally drink wine at all. Id be fine with my normal drunken state (i normally drink vodka) yet i cant help but feel giddy lovey and stupid

I believe the wine specific headache is caused by the sulfites. I always wondered about this question myself. I believe there is something to it. I know rice and grain alcohol causes a bad reaction for me but that’s due to an allergy.

Well, it is not like you just drink alcohol when you gulp down different drinks. There all kinds of different chemicals in those fluids that differ from beverage to beverage.
That is why (or so I heard) it is thought healthier to eat the actual fruit then to just inject yourself with the pure vitamins.

I’ve never had this experience except for one time in my whole life, and it was when I had an emotional problem that the alcohol just happened to intensify. It is definitely possible, but I also think people let their emotions get the best of them just because they are drunk.

I think it’s a social thing.

I drink tequila when I want to get hammered (thirty years ago), and I drink gin-tonic when I want a cocktail at a bar. I drink wine sometimes with meals.

Those are each entirely different social arrangements.

“Winos” drink wine to get hammered.

alcohol is uninhibiting…
The various other compounds and chemicals in differing alcohols have varied affects on people depending on their unique mental chemical makeup. Whatever those effects are, they are magnified and liberated with consumption of alcohol.

When I drink vodka, bad stuff happens, tequila barely affects me. Wine makes me cozy. I know what you mean. It’s weird.

I think the major difference is in type of drink and the different ways they are consumed. Carbonated drinks like beer and champagne absorb quickly and give the pleasant buzz before enough is consumed to impair functions. Hence giddy, happy feeling.

Tequilla is almost always done in shots, second going down before the first has taken effect so the effects compound and you go from sober to shitfaced in a matter of seconds without the transitional buzz. Hence crazy.

Good wines and liquors are sipped slowly, usually during or after a meal so the effect comes on gradually and stays mellow.

For this you have to do a small test. You take the same person and you put this person in the same circumstances [which is impossible because he will always feel different] then you get them drunk with different “poisons” in different days and see how he reacts. I doubt he’ll react different though I might be wrong.

I never heard of a such thing till today. Different alcohol beverages to have a different effect on the same person.

@Blueroses that makes sense. But I take shots of vodka, whiskey, and tequila and they all effect me very differently. Its why I wont drink tequila or whiskey.

@uberbatman I know what you mean and I don’t have an answer for that except maybe the way various starches vs. sugars ferment into alcohol. Agave (tequila) affects me like caffeine, bright and alert. Starchy (vodka or corn whiskey) slams me and gives an angry, on-the-fight feeling. Juniper (gin) is hardly noticeable and sugar cane (rum) is slow to come on, then gets stumbly/chatty – stereotypical drunk-ish.

Maybe it relates to the way individuals process sugars?

Wine makes you giddy b/c alcohol in moderation makes you giddy. . . Wine has alot less alcohol than hard liquor, so you’d have to consume ALOT more to get the tequila (nutso) effect, so it’s easier for you to stay at that nice buzzed level . . .

Other than that, all the hard liquors get you the same way… it’s more about how much you drink, not what you drink.

@mrrich724 when I wrote this question last night I was a bottle and a half in on wine. I was drunk as hell, but my girlfriend will even attest to the fact that I was lovey and stupid with her. Not like I would be with other alcohols.

Vodka I love and it usually loves me, beer takes too long and makes me full, wine makes me blush and smile, tequila makes me get naked, whiskey… well, it just tastes like shoe leather to me so that is hard to get past so I just choose not to these days. I would agree that different based alcoholic beverages do effect me differently than others will. A champagne headache is terrible… shots of Jager are fun but tends to make me a bit out of my mind. I hear the real stuff in Germany is actually, or was at one time, strained through opium leaves. Would that be poppy plant leaves maybe? I don’t know if there is any truth to that, any other flutherites know?