Dark Liquor Means Worse Hangovers

Posted on December 28, 2009 in Consumer Goods, Health & Medicine, Recent Studies

When it comes to your drink of choice, make it clear-colored. In a head-to-head comparison, bourbon gave drinkers a worse study than vodka, according to a new study reported in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Researchers examined 95 healthy young adults aged 21 to 33 and gave them caffeine-free cola mixed with bourbon, vodka or tonic water. Participants were allowed to drink until their breath-alcohol concentrations reached 0.11. After being hooked up to sleep monitors, researchers monitored the severity of hangover levels.

Bourbon drinkers reported feeling worse than vodka drinkers across the board. The lead study author noted that the darker alcohol has 37 times more toxic compounds than the vodka does. The clearer the substances, the less bad-for-you organic molecules like acetone and acetaldehyde.

For the record, both bourbon and vodka drinkers did not sleep as well as non-drinkers. When drinkers were given cognitive tests, both performed equally poorly.