Myth or fact

Beer before liquor, never sicker

Short answerNo

By GyroscopeUpdated November 14, 20265 sources

No. In a 2019 trial, 90 people drank beer then wine, wine then beer, or just one of them, to the same high level. Neither the order nor the type changed how bad the hangover was. The strongest predictors were how drunk people felt and whether they vomited.

Why does everyone know this rhyme?

It’s catchy, and almost every drinking culture has its own version. The researchers who tested it in 2019 noted that the old sayings exist “in many languages,” and named their paper after one of them, “Grape or grain but never the twain.”

The rhyme also fits a real experience. If you’ve moved from beer to shots late in a night and felt awful the next day, it’s easy to blame the order. The shots usually also meant more alcohol, faster.

What did the trial find?

Researchers in Germany recruited 90 people aged 19 to 40, half of them women, and matched them in threes by age, sex, body build, drinking habits and how often they got hangovers. One group drank beer and then switched to wine, until they reached a set high breath alcohol level. A second group did the same in the opposite order. The third group drank only beer or only wine.

At least a week later, everyone came back and did it again. The two switching groups swapped their order, and the people who’d had only beer had only wine, and the other way round. The next day each time, they rated their hangover on a standard scale.

Neither the type of drink nor the order made a significant difference. What predicted the worst hangovers was how drunk people said they felt during the evening and whether they vomited.

Ordering your drinks differently is like eating the slices of a pizza in a different order. You’re just as full afterward, because it’s the number of slices that does it.

Does liquor change the answer?

The trial used beer and wine, not spirits, so it can’t test the “liquor” half of the rhyme directly. What it does show is that switching between two drinks in either direction didn’t matter, and the dose did.

The type of drink can matter a little, but it isn’t about order. In a 2010 study of 95 heavy drinkers who drank bourbon or vodka to the same level, people felt worse the morning after bourbon, which carries more byproducts of fermenting and aging. Their sleep and next-day attention took the same hit either way. Clear drinks give you smaller hangovers covers that one.

A shot is also smaller than it looks next to a pint. A 1.5 oz shot of 40% spirits holds the same 14 g of alcohol as a 12 oz beer, according to NIAAA, so three shots late in the evening are three more drinks on top of whatever came before. Four or more drinks for women, or five or more for men, in about two hours is what NIAAA counts as binge drinking.

The best case for the rhyme

“I always feel worse when I mix.” That’s real, but the trial suggests the mixing isn’t the cause. Nights with several kinds of drinks are often longer, bigger nights, and in this trial, the bigger the night felt, the worse the morning. Even water doesn’t save you much here. A 2024 review found water during the evening had only a modest effect on the next day’s hangover.

Count the whole night in US drinks. What’s in your glass adds up any mix of pours, and Hangovers has the rest.