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Have you ever heard the saying "beer before liquor never been sicker"? Or 鈥渓iquor before beer, you鈥檙e in the clear鈥�? What about 鈥済rape or grain but never the twain鈥�? Well, it turns out that there might be some truth to at least some of these adages.

There are a few factors to consider here.

First, there鈥檚 the absolute volume of alcohol you are consuming. Looking at the Manhattan as our example cocktail, it contains roughly alcohol by volume (ABV), which makes it seem much less potent than, say, straight whiskey, with its ABV of 40%. But it鈥檚 not really fair to compare these drinks on their ABVs since the amounts consumed tend to be different.

What matters isn鈥檛 the ABV of a drink, but the true amount of pure alcohol (ethanol) in a drink. In the chart below you can see a comparison of drinks鈥� ABVs, volumes, and actual amounts of ethanol.

So you can see that, even though we tend to consider one glass of wine, cocktail, or can of beer equal to 鈥渙ne drink鈥�, the actual amount of alcohol you鈥檙e consuming can vary wildly by what kind of drink you are having.

The volume difference in drinks also influences how quickly we drink them. A beer tends to take longer to drink than a cocktail, or especially a shot, simply because it鈥檚 much larger. Purely based on volume, you could drink 2.5 Manhattans in the time it takes to drink one bottle of beer. So, by drinking beer, you essentially give yourself a lower alcohol per minute rate of consumption than when drinking cocktails.

If your options are only to drink cocktails and then beer, or beer and then cocktails, it makes sense to keep your heavier drinking for the beginning of your night. When you鈥檙e more sober you鈥檒l be better able to pace yourself, evaluate how you鈥檙e feeling, and make changes to your rate of consumption if need be. Later in the evening, when your decision-making process is already compromised, beer is a safer option that won鈥檛 contribute as much to making you more intoxicated.

There is however another factor at play here: how well your body absorbs alcohol in different preparations. found that the vodka served diluted (with carbonated or still water) was absorbed faster than the vodka served neat. This means that even if the same amount of time is taken to drink straight liquor or a glass of wine (two drinks which contain about the same absolute amount of alcohol) the wine still may leave you more intoxicated, as it is better absorbed into your blood.

As for the grape or grain advice? Feel free to ignore it. A compared the hangover severities of subjects who drank only beer, only wine, beer and then wine, or wine and then beer, and found that 鈥滐豢neither type nor order of consumed alcoholic beverages significantly affected hangover intensity.鈥�

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