Mixing and Matching Wine with Liquor

I love wine, but also love me some bourbon and tequila. When I’m drinking at home, I often times struggle with which I want to begin the night with, which I want to end night with.

If you know you’re going to be drinking wine, but also maybe a glass of bourbon or tequila, which order would you go with? I generally start with bourbon/tequila, then pop some wine when it’s time to eat.

If you trust Russians’ take on serious drinking they have a simple rule, which seems to work, at least for me. ALWAYS go in the direction of increased alcohol levels. In other words, start with wine at 9-14%, then move up to alcohol. Never in reverse.

Another trick a serious drinker once taught me, and it seems to make sense, if you know you will be drinking a lot that night, drink a bit of alcohol 2 or so hours ahead. Beer, wine, alc, whatever, an ounce of something, maybe even less. This gets your liver kick started on producing enzymes to process alcohol intake, and when you get down to drinking 2 hours later your liver is fully up to speed and able to process greater amount of alcohol.

I always believed the opposite, start with highest alc % and go lower. The idea is the more you drink, the quicker you drink, so move down % once you turn your sips into gulps.

Anyways, once I found out dinner tonight was sushi, I poured myself a nice glass of Eagle rare to start the weekend

And don’t forget the water!

And leave that much less room for alcohol?

I get epic hangovers if I mix alcohols, so I select either alcohol or wine and go with it the entire evening. That said, I get hangovers no matter what I’m drinking. The curse of the Irish.

When drinking, my suggestion is to stick with ethanol. Leave both methanol and more complex alcohols to other purposes.