Alcohol and coffee are two completely different beverages. While one acts as a stimulant, immediately elevating your body’s alertness, the other is intoxicating and makes you sleepy in the process. If there’s one thing for sure, caffeine and alcohol in separate create two entirely different results upon consumption.
Come the early 20th century, CABs or caffeinated alcoholic beverages became wildly popular amongst the youth. Market advertisers presented these alcoholic drinks as an energizer when engaging in extreme sports activities. Although there is some truth to the nature of their product promotion, mixing caffeine and wine has some dangerous health risks.
What Is Caffeine?
The most common source of caffeine is coffee. It is commonly known as a stimulant that elevates the body’s alert levels and keeps you awake. If you check out some coffee information, you will notice its many benefits. Aside from metabolic assistance, coffee contains essential nutrients that can keep the body going.
Coffee is packed with a concentrated amount of caffeine accompanied by a strong taste and aroma, which people from different age groups enjoy in a variety of flavors and drinks. Since the caffeine content is strong, coffee has the ability to block off your brain signals that trigger drowsiness. Excessive intake increases heart rate and elevates your blood levels.
Aside from coffee, there are also other sources of caffeine. Since caffeine is tasteless, manufacturers can put them in various food and medicinal products without you noticing. It stimulates the nervous system and provides a jolt of energy that keeps many adults awake and packed with a good zing to get them through the day.
Alcohol Content in Wine
If coffee is considered a drink that will get your day started, wine is saved for particular night occasions. Often, wine is consumed at night clubs and parties as it triggers the release of your happy hormones while intoxicating you in the process. As a result, wine makes you drunk but undeniably more social, happy, or maybe just sleepy.
The reason behind wine’s calming and intoxicating effect is alcohol content. A bottle of wine contains around 12.5% of alcohol. An increased or decreased volume of alcohol concentrations in every wine bottle varies per manufacturing company. These concentration levels control how drunk a person can get on an alcoholic beverage.
Alcohol acts as a depressant that calms your nervous system, making you sleepy. It also reduces your ability to think clearly. Thus, drunk people often slur or are incapable of processing current situations. Too much alcohol consumption can lead to serious health issues such as alcohol poisoning and liver damage.
Caffeinated Alcoholic Beverages
CABs or caffeinated alcoholic beverages and caffeinated energy drinks became a popular item in the market, particularly for the youth, in the 2000s. Advertising companies linked the consumption of these drinks to increased energy levels and extreme sports participation. Thus, it piqued the interest of many adults and adolescents alike.
Its manufacturers’ combined depressants (alcohol), stimulants (caffeine), and other ingredients in one beverage capable of increasing a consumer’s energy levels to vigorous amounts. This is possible due to caffeine’s ability to mask the depressant effects of alcohol, making you more alert instead of tired.
As a result, these beverages had a higher alcohol content than beer or other alcoholic beverages. Its popularity grew until the US Food and Drug Administration declared that it was unsafe to consume these products. The CAB companies’ response announced immediate removal of caffeine in their products.
Effects of Alcohol and Caffeine
Coffee and whiskey have two similarly bold flavors that blend well according to other people’s preferences. This drink combination is just one among other alcoholic concoctions that incorporate caffeine to keep the night longer and the party going due to a double buzz effect. It allows individuals to enjoy a good sip of alcohol without experiencing its drowsy effects.
As mentioned, caffeine acts as a stimulant and has the ability to mask alcohol’s depressant effects. Thus, instead of calming the nervous system upon alcohol intake, it keeps the body’s energy levels high while still experiencing brain impairment and a slowed reaction. Forget the myth that coffee helps you sober up after a long night of drinking.
A natural response from those who cannot feel the drowsing effects of alcohol is to consume more alcohol, leading to a higher risk of liver damage and alcohol poisoning. Increased alcohol intake has serious health risks that can lead to severe or permanent damage.
Individuals who are alcohol-intoxicated are prone to doing dangerous acts because they cannot think clearly. The caffeine in their system keeps them awake and filled with energy, allowing them to do more than they usually can when consuming alcoholic beverages than caffeinated alcoholic drinks.
Based on the discussion, it is best to avoid mixing caffeine with wine and other alcoholic beverages. It incorporates high energy levels with impaired critical thinking abilities making you more prone to dangerous acts and terrible decisions. Although a single cup will not kill or damage you severely, just be careful of your caffeinated alcohol intake.
Caffeine and alcohol, when drunk separately, have two completely different effects. Mixing them together is not a good idea as one tends to overlap the other, leading to a series of additional health risks. Drinking them one after the other also creates the same effect. It decreases your body’s ability to fully experience the effects of alcohol.
The best time to consume both beverages is at least six to eight hours apart. If you plan to go on a drinking expedition, try to avoid coffee or caffeine at least six hours prior to your arrangement. When we consume coffee or tea, the caffeine stays in our system but slowly decreases over time.
However, be sure to note that there are different caffeine concentrations in other coffee and tea brews. For example, a 16-hour cold coffee brew has 50% more caffeine content than a hot brewed coffee. Similarly, different types of tea contain different levels of caffeine. The more caffeine in your system, the longer it takes to deplete.