Science says: this wine will give you the worst hangover

For a while, I swore by vodka when I went out for drinks, as research would show that you get the least hangovers from it. the least hangovers I rejected every shot of limoncello because that would actually lead to the worst kind. Now, I haven't conducted any scientific research on it, but from my own experience, I've learned that if you drink way too much of something, you still end up with a hangover. So, I tossed the vodka overboard a bit (because people started talking about the ‘vodka monster’ that came out in me after too many drinks) and I'm back to square one.

Now I have the advantage that I like almost all drinks. A beer, wine or mixed drink, cocktails; bring them on, I love them all. But with an eye on that hangover the next morning, I still want to approach the drinks a bit responsibly. So I thought I was safe with wine, but that's not entirely the case, because even with wines, there is a difference in how bad that hangover can be. What's the worst: white, rosé, or red?

Bad news, because it's my favorite wine: red. Goddammit... Yes, you better not drink too many glasses of that delicious red wine, because then you won't be a happy panda tomorrow. This is because red wine generally contains more alcohol than white wine or rosé, but it also has to do with the ‘congeners’, a substance that forms during the fermentation process of the wine. When that substance enters your body, toxins and tannins are released. The former causes stomach issues, while the latter causes that hangover headache. So, bad news.

Do you want to enjoy the wine but not the hangover? Keep the following mnemonic in mind: the lighter, the better. Because the darker your wine is, the more congeners it contains. In fact, this mnemonic applies to all drinks, as darker rum also leads to a worse hangover than, for example, clear vodka. Learned something new.

Am I going to completely avoid that red wine now? Noo. But I'm going to try to cut back a bit and possibly switch to a lighter type of drink. That comes with a heavy heart because I love those glasses of red.