Is it true that drinking alcohol in small sips makes you drunk faster? Is it possible to drink without swallowing?

Attention

Drinking a can of beer in one gulp puts a large amount of alcohol into your system in a short period of time, which can lead to rapid intoxication, vomiting and/or alcohol poisoning. Drink alcohol responsibly.

Step 1: Take a can of beer

Take an unopened can of beer and place it sideways in your palm. If you want to compete with your friends in speed drinking, stand together in a circle.

Hint

Use light beer, it's easier to swallow. In addition, the beer should not be too cold, otherwise you will freeze your brain.

Step 2: Punch a Hole

Punch a small hole that you can easily close with your mouth. The hole should be located closer to the bottom of the jar, on the side that faces you.

Hint

If you don't have a regular knife, use a can opener, a pen, or a set of keys.

Step 3: Place your mouth on the hole

Place your mouth on the hole and turn the can vertically.

Step 4: Open the jar

When you are ready to drink, open the can as usual using your free hand.

Step 5: Drink quickly

Start drinking as quickly as you can. Air entering the can through the top hole will cause the beer to pour out through the bottom hole very quickly - literally in 3-5 seconds!

Step 6: Throw the can on the floor

Throw your can on the floor as soon as you're done. Even if you do it first, if the remaining beer spills on the floor, you lose!

Fact

Research has shown that drinking beer - in moderation - can reduce the risk of strokes and cardiovascular disease.

In June, a beer festival was held in Belokurikha. His main intrigue was a competition to quickly drink this drink. The competent jury and numerous spectators remained in the dark until late in the evening as to who would become the best “beer wrestler.” And only a small group of select people sitting at our table knew the name of the future hero from the very beginning. It just so happened that in the same company with us was last year’s winner of this competition, “a great specialist in the beer business,” Alexey Chernikov.

You can’t waste such “talent”

Twenty-three-year-old Alexey says that winning last year's beer festival truly turned his life around. He became the hero of Belokurikha, a kind of symbol of the city. The guy says that he was immediately respected at work (Alexey works at a construction site), and the girls began casting ardent glances at the enviable groom. So, after that victory, our hero did not remain single for long: almost immediately the first beauty, Belokurikha, took him into her arms. Her name is Anna, she graduated from high school this year. Alexey admitted that he practically never drank beer before. “He’s our vodka specialist,” his friends say. - I could drink half a liter of Stolichnaya in one gulp. We had no idea that he would have such talent for beer.” “Our Alyosha is very talented,” his faithful friend speaks enthusiastically about him. “He knows how to do everything around the house: he’s an excellent cook, he draws wonderfully, he even has 120 percent vision.” Alexey also has very strong teeth (your correspondent was convinced of this): he easily opened corks with his “iron” incisors.

The secret of records

Alexey watched very carefully as his rivals emptied their glasses of beer, and gave his comments along the way. He didn’t see a worthy opponent, so he wasn’t nervous and immediately set himself up for victory. He even arranged for a car in advance so that he could then deliver home the main prize - a color TV.

What is your secret anyway? - I asked Alexey.

Open your mouth wide and pour the beer. Don't be afraid to choke!

In your opinion, do the anatomical features of a person matter in this matter? For example, you are slim, and almost all of your rivals have beer bellies. Who has it easier: you or them?

I think in this matter it doesn’t matter whether you are thick or thin. The main thing is to be able to drink in one sip. I once joked about my friends like this. After work they bought half a liter. Give me, I say, I’ll take one sip. They didn’t even have time to blink an eye, and I was already handing them an empty bottle.

Under rain

It began to rain heavily. But the fans and participants of the beer competition did not disperse, but only huddled closer under their umbrellas. Our hero was wearing only a shirt: he was wet to the skin and completely chilled. Anya took off her jacket and gave it to Alexey. “He needs warmth now more than I do,” the girl answered our perplexed glances. By the way, Anna took part in a beer competition among women, but she failed to even make it to the semifinals. Because of this, the seventeen-year-old girl was very worried. “Don't be so upset. “You will definitely win next year,” her husband reassured her. - We'll train together. You’ll learn to drink beer as well as I can.” “I’ll definitely learn,” the girl sobbed.

A little vodka won't hurt

The final was approaching, Alexey Chernikov was preparing for the decisive fight. To stay in “sports shape,” he sipped beer all this time in small sips; fortunately, next door to our table they set up a tent where they poured this drink for free to everyone. A long line of people immediately formed. Even teetotalers and ulcer sufferers drank beer for free. Just before the finale, Anya took out a bottle of vodka she had saved from her bosom, poured it into a glass up to the top rim and carefully handed it to her boyfriend: “Drink to warm up.” Alexei gratefully accepted the strong drink from the hands of his beloved girl, drained the glass in one fell swoop and, swaying slightly, walked towards the stage.

Laurels to the winner

This was another triumph for Alexei Chernikov. He immediately found himself in the spotlight, surrounded by numerous journalists. So that it was impossible to get through to him. He was generous with interviews. Then the drunken Alexey’s friends carried him to the car with honor, and then someone brought in a TV. That day, the hero of Belokurikha failed to set a new world record (one beer wrestler from the Guinness Book of Records drank half a liter of beer in 3 seconds). Alexey has the best performance to date, 3.25 s. Probably, this time the establishment of a new “world achievement” was prevented by bad weather. But Alexey Chernikov is confident that next time he will break all records. There are still nuggets in Russia, and such “talent”, perhaps, cannot really be wasted. True, it is possible that next year the Belokurikha catfish may have worthy rivals. Managers of the Barnaul brewery told your correspondent that beer consumption in Russia is increasing every year. According to their data, every resident of the Altai Territory (including infants and old people) drinks about 40 liters of beer on average per year. So in the ranks of the “beer fighters” we should expect more in the near future.

Beer drinking records

On February 7, 1975, Peter G. Dowdeswell drank 2 liters of beer in 6 seconds. On June 22, 1977, Steven Petrogino (Pennsylvania, USA) drank 1 liter of beer in 1.3 seconds. Somewhat earlier, in 1970, at the World Exhibition EXPO-70 in Osaka, a citizen of Czechoslovakia, Midler, drank 10.5 liters of beer in 3 minutes. It is curious that the publisher of the first “Book of Records”, which gave it its name, was the Guinness Brewery in 1955.

Records for the quantity and speed of beer drinking remain tempting for beer lovers in many countries. During the All-Polish Beer Festival, organized in the early 1990s by the parliamentary group of the Polish Beer Lovers' Party, 30 Poles drank 400 liters in 12 hours - an average of 26.5 mugs each. At the first Russian competition “Who drinks the most beer,” held in the same years, the winner drank 9 half-liter mugs of beer in 10 minutes.

A resident of Birmingham (UK), Harnseth Brooks, did not care about any record. Nevertheless, the amount of beer that she drank during her long life is assessed by experts as one of the record ones. Every day, starting at age 18, she drank at least one liter of beer, living until she was 91. It is estimated that the total amount of beer she drank was about 70 tons.

Lately we have begun to hear so often phrases like “drink in one gulp, you won’t get drunk!” and “if you drink through a straw, you get drunk faster,” that they decided to look into the issue and dot all the i’s. Do these stories have any basis in reality, or are they just an excuse for those who want to persuade you to drink more? Let's find out together with chemist Ivan Sorokin, psychiatrist-narcologist Elena Shalaeva and bartender Lisa Evdokimova.

Ivan Sorokin

chemist, teacher at Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov and gymnasium No. 45 named after L.I. Milgram

Honestly, this is the first time I’ve heard about this stereotype, but I’ll try to comment on it from the point of view of my specialty - chemical kinetics (a branch of physical chemistry that deals with the mechanisms and rates of reactions).

The elimination of alcohol obeys a zero-order kinetic equation, that is, the metabolic rate is constant and does not depend on the concentration of alcohol in the blood. By the way, a similar mechanism distinguishes the metabolism of ethanol from, for example, the metabolism of most drugs, where it is possible to determine the half-life, which is a constant.

Half-life is also a constant - for example in radioactive decay reactions - because both in the drug example and here these reactions are classified as first-order reactions. This means that the rate of the reaction depends on the concentration of the reactant raised to the first power - as opposed to the zero power for the alcohol metabolism reaction.

As a result, as you might guess, the one who drinks in one gulp will get more drunk: the peak concentration of alcohol in this case is higher, and this does not affect the rate of decrease in intoxication in any way (that is, someone who drinks a glass of vodka in one gulp will not soon sober up to the level of a person who drank the same glass with breaks, since they sober up at the same speed).

As for drinking alcoholic beverages through a straw (again, a stereotype that I am encountering for the first time), in this case the dubiousness of the statement about faster intoxication should be obvious to a non-specialist: in everyday life we constantly encounter situations where a larger surface absorbs better. The same approach applies here: alcohol enters the body not only through the esophagus, stomach and intestines, but also through the mucous membrane, so the more area of your mouth available for this process, the faster you will get drunk. Another thing is that straws often provide a greater speed of consumption, but this is a psychological effect.

Elena Shalaeva

psychiatrist-narcologist, assistant at the Department of Narcology and Psychotherapy of the Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Further Professional Education IPK FMBA of Russia, psychotherapist of the Moscow City Psychotherapeutic Center

From my medical experience I can say the following.
It’s not for nothing that he recommends dissolving some medications: we also have receptors in our mouths, thanks to which substances are absorbed. When a person consumes something slowly, in this case alcohol, the absorption surface increases. Further, due to the slower movement of alcohol through the digestive tract, the contact area increases. A person gets drunk more and faster. But such intoxication also passes faster. If you drink in one gulp, the receptors in your mouth simply won’t have time to sense anything. A simple example: if you apply balm to your head and leave it for a while, rather than immediately washing it off, the effect will be greater.

But in this case, many factors must be taken into account, ranging from the individual characteristics of the body, on which the rate of absorption of substances depends, and ending with the time of drinking alcohol and its amount. If the amount of alcohol drunk slowly and in one gulp is the same, in the second case, intoxication will occur more slowly and later: the alcohol will not have time to be absorbed in the mouth and after some time will begin to be absorbed in the stomach.

Or, for example, if in the same period of time one person slowly drinks one glass of alcohol, and another drinks several in one gulp, it is clear who will get drunk more and faster.

Liza Evdokimova

restaurant bartender
and Delicatessen bar

If you drink alcohol in small portions, alcohol intoxication occurs a little faster, since it begins to be absorbed into the body in the oral cavity through the mucous membrane. But this only applies to pure and strong alcohol, since, for example, cocktails are quite diluted.

Few people drink pure alcohol through a straw. And the difference between those who drink pure alcohol in shots and those who drink in small sips is that the former want to get drunk, while the latter enjoy the taste. It often happens that the first category drinks more than the second in the same time. But if you set yourself the goal of quickly getting drunk with a small amount of alcohol, the effect will be if you drink small sips often: this way the alcohol will begin to be absorbed on its way to the stomach.

Illustration: Nastya Grigorieva

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Attention: This article is intended for persons over 18 years of age.

Drinking beer in one gulp is a lot of fun, you can even have a competition with your friends. To learn how to drink beer in one gulp, you need to understand a few basic principles. You should relax your throat so that the beer flows freely into your stomach. If you drink from a can or bottle, provide a hole to allow the liquid to flow freely from the container. Let's drink to the bottom!

Steps

From a mug or glass

Pour beer into a glass and wait until the foam settles. Do not drink foamy beer in one gulp, as this can cause stomach pain, gas and nausea. Wait until the foam settles. In addition, during this time the beer will have time to warm up a little, and you will be able to avoid a “cold” headache (also called “brain freeze”)!

The shape of the glass can affect how successfully you drink your beer in one gulp. It is much easier to drink from a wide mug than from a glass that is narrowed at the top.

Advice: choose a lighter beer. Although you won't be able to taste the drink, light beers are easier on the stomach than darker, richer beers like Guinness.

Tap the bottom of the glass on the table to release the gas. Beer contains carbon dioxide (CO2). If you swallow gas in addition to liquid, it will cause discomfort and possibly nausea. An easy way to get rid of some of the CO2 before drinking your beer is to slam the bottom of the glass on a table or other hard surface.

Don't hit the glass too hard, just tap to release any gas bubbles.

Take a deep breath and tilt your head back slightly. Before drinking your beer, take a deep breath to prepare yourself for what's next. Tilt your head back slightly so that the contents of the glass can easily flow directly into your stomach. Grasp the glass properly.

Bring the glass to your mouth and quickly tip it. Once you've taken a deep breath and are in the mood, bring the glass to your mouth and place your lips on the rim. Quickly turn the glass over so that its contents pour into your mouth. Do not try to swallow the beer, otherwise it may splash out of your mouth.
- Be careful not to hit your teeth with the glass and damage them.
Relax your throat and hold your breath. Do not swallow liquid that is poured into your mouth. Instead, relax your throat and let the beer flow freely into your stomach. Let gravity do the work for you. Hold your breath so that it does not interrupt the flow of liquid, otherwise it will slow down and the beer may splash.
- Imagine that you are pouring water into an open hole.
Drink the entire glass to the bottom. Don't stop halfway! Keep your throat relaxed as the glass of beer is poured into it. Tilt the glass further and further to keep the beer flowing out. When the beer is gone, catch your breath and enjoy the delight of the audience.
- Beer contains a large amount of CO 2, which a powerful burp will help get rid of.

From a can

Use a knife to make a small hole at the top of the jar to allow air to flow through. Position the knife vertically and place the tip against the top of the jar near the tongue. At the same time, hold both the can and the knife tightly. Lightly press the knife into the jar to pierce it. Make sure that the edges of the hole are not sharp, otherwise you may cut yourself when drinking beer.
- You can pierce the jar with a knife, key, or other sharp object.
- The hole should be small, about the size of a pencil tip.
Advice: Another way to drink beer from a can in one gulp is the “shot from a gun” technique - in this case, a hole is made in the bottom of the can, and then it is tipped over, and the beer pours out under the influence of gravity.

Close the hole with the index finger of the hand in which you are holding the jar. Grasp the can with your dominant hand and place your index finger over the opening until you are ready to drink the beer. The hole made allows air to easily enter the jar. As a result, beer will flow out of it easier and faster.
- You can also grab the can with your non-dominant hand and leave your dominant hand free to greet friends during and after drinking beer.
Open the can and start drinking as you usually do. Open the jar without removing your finger from the hole. Place the can to your mouth and start drinking beer as usual. At first, the beer will flow quickly and you will find it easy to swallow.

Inhale, tilt your head back and remove your finger from the hole in the jar. When you are ready to drink the beer in one gulp, take a deep breath so you don't breathe for a while. Remove your finger from the hole and tip the can so the beer flows freely. Raise the can higher and higher until the beer flows freely down your throat.

Relax your throat and let the beer flow freely until the can is empty. Don't try to swallow your beer while trying to empty the can. Instead, relax your throat and allow the beer to flow freely down your esophagus and into your stomach. Hold your breath while doing this.
- Consider flattening the can in your hand and throwing it on the floor after you've finished all the beer to impress your friends even more. However, do not leave trash behind and pick up the jar a little later.

Using a straw from a bottle

Open the bottle and wait until the beer releases some gas and warms up slightly. Do not drink too cold beer in one gulp, otherwise you can damage your throat and stomach. In addition, newly opened beer contains too much gas, which makes it difficult to drink it in one gulp and, if it enters the stomach, can cause discomfort and nausea. Let the open bottle sit for a while so that the excess carbon dioxide is released into the air instead of in your stomach, and the beer warms up slightly.