Different kinds of alcohol might make you feel different emotions

Humans have been buddies with booze for thousands of years. Some scientists believe this love affair goes back even further. The so-called drunken monkey hypothesis speculates that our ancestors possessed an unusual knack for consuming ethanol without keeling over dead, allowing them to access the sweet, sweet caloric payloads of rotting, fermenting fruit. But we’ve come a long way from merely tolerating overripe apples. These days, alcohol factors into our social interactions, our most cherished cultural ceremonies, countless classic poems, songs, paintings, and plays. And save for some occasions when we sip an elixir to fulfill a religious rite, we drink alcohol for one main reason: it makes us feel good.

But how exactly does it make us feel? According to a study published Tuesday in the British Medical Journal’s BMJ Open, different types of alcohol can actually inspire different emotional responses. Hard liquors made almost half of all participants feel “sexy,” for example, while more than half reported feeling relaxed when drinking red wine. Drinking spirits was far more likely to elicit feelings of aggression, illness, restlessness, and tearfulness than wine or beer.

“There is plenty of promotional material—through advertising, for instance—to promote the positive emotions people might look for from drinking,” says study co-author Alisha Davies, head of research and development at Public Health Wales. “But we thought it was also important to better understand the negative ones as well. If we are to help people make informed decisions about their drinking, they need to know the full picture of how alcohol affects moods and emotions.

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