We all know the saying: liquor before beer and you're in the clear, beer before liquor and you'll never be sicker. Because I'm a hard hitting journalist, I decided to put this to the test when I went to Sunday Funday at a bar on Long Island (shout out to Minnesota's). What follows is a play by play of what I experienced, based mainly on a note that I wrote on my phone.
The Beginning
I chose to start my night off with the least offensive beer I could think of: Bud Light. It's not too strong, not heavy, and most of all, not expensive. However, since beer tends to fill you up, I only drank 2. Anything more than that and I probably would have been compelled to just keep drinking beer for the rest of the night.
Even though I thought that 2 beers wasn't much, they filled me up more than I expected (story of every beer-drinkers life). In fact, to quote my own note from that night: "Drank 2 bud lights, feeling full and a lil' bloated. BUT feeling good!" So far, so good. My next note was: "Gonna switch to margaritas, we shall see how this goes". Famous last words.
The Middle
Time to test out this rhyme for real. If you noticed in my last article, I had tequila on my mind, so I decided to go for a margarita. Maybe not the best move, but sorry I was craving a nice frozen marg. And it was good! A perfect drink for a hot June happy hour. The margarita was strong but also sweet, and by the end of it, I must admit, I was feeling pretty buzzed.
I am an avid follower of this rule (until this experiment, of course), even though I never understood its origin. However, my thoughts after the marg were: "This saying is dumb. Don't think anything would be different if I had switched the order." It was a simpler time, as shown by this selfie:
In order to make this experiment as neutral as possible, I decided to switch to water for awhile. I did not want to "never be sicker" because of dehydration. This was probably a good decision in the long run, and also leads me to....
The End
...when I finally understood how this became a rule passed down from generation to generation. For context, I ate a good dinner that night, and as I said before, I drank a lot of water to keep things impartial.
However, when we decided to leave the bar and go home, I was hit with an intense wave of nausea. Like, had-to-sit-in-the-car-in-silence-and-sip-water nausea. While I didn't end up actually acting on said nausea, it was NOT a good time. My exact words were: "ruh-roh." And I sincerely believe it was because I went against the Drinking Gods and screwed up the order.
The Verdict
Friends, family, honored guests: I would not recommend beer before liquor. I mean, it all could have been a fluke, but I tried really hard to have the least sickness-inducing conditions when I conducted this experiment. And anyways, starting off with beer means you're starting off already full/bloated, and you've consumed a lot of empty calories and not a lot of liquid. Obey the rules of drinking—there are rules for a reason. And I for one, am definitely sticking to liquor before beer for the foreseeable future.