Does Champagne Actually Get You Drunk Faster?
Every time I spend New Year's Eve with my mom, she tells me the same thing: "Be careful with that Champagne, honey. The bubbles go straight to the head. And it won't be pretty tomorrow."
Thanks, Mom. Glad you're looking after me after all these years.
But is she right?
The internet will sure tell you so. Search for "Champagne, bubbles and drunk," and you'll get articles entitled "Why Bubbles Make You More Giggly" and "Fizz in bubbly will get you drunk faster."
But if you dig a little deeper, the scientific evidence is about as thin as the stem on a Reidel Champagne flute.
Among the first researchers to investigate the bubbles was a group in England that published a study looking at how quickly alcohol entered the blood when people drank a bubbly Champagne versus a degassed one. "We found that the blood alcohol levels of the people drinking the gas champagne were higher for the first twenty minutes, suggesting that it had got into the blood stream a lot quicker," the lead researcher on the study, Fran Ridout told The Naked Scientist.
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