Send all questions to: advice@vinepair.com
Is it a bad idea to drink when you’re sick?
While a Hot Toddy will definitely help you sleep, all in all, drinking alcohol while sick is not a great idea. It will actually make a cold last longer. There are a few reasons for this:
1. Alcohol, just like cold germs, is treated as a toxin by your body. When you drink while sick, your body prioritizes getting rid of the alcohol over getting rid of your cold germs. Thus, your cold lasts longer.
2. A cold dehydrates you, and so does alcohol. That means you’re likely to make things like congestion much worse.
3. If you’re on antibiotics, that alcohol you’re swigging could actually make them less effective. So much for that 3 Day Z-Pack.
4. You could be damaging your liver. That’s because both alcohol and anti-inflammatory medications like Tylenol and Advil are processed by the liver. Consuming both at the same time can put a lot of stress on one organ.
While you might feel better while drinking when sick, that’s simply the intoxication talking. It might help get you to sleep, but the sleep won’t be restful and you’re actually slowing your recovery.
Is it disrespectful to openly be checking canned on/bottled on dates for beers in liquor stores/bottle shops to check for freshness?
Absolutely not. Maintaining freshness is a responsibility of both the brewers, who need to clearly mark their cans (you’d be surprised but not all do), and the retailers. If you find a beer at your local store that is expired, let someone know. They should pull it from the shelf immediately.
While many may not realize it, beer expires. When it does it starts to lose its flavor, which results in a subpar drinking experience. That’s why brewers that care about their consumers and products mark their cans with either expiration dates or born-on dates that provide information about expiry.
But brewers can only do so much. It’s also up to the retailer to monitor their sales floors and replace cans that go bad. If you find that a lot of beers at your local shop are expired, my advice is to find a new beer store.
Is it O.K. for me to fill expensive liquor bottles with cheap liquor? Asking for a friend…
Wow, how cheap is your “friend?” Are they/you trying to wind up in prison like Rudy Kurniawan? No, taking cheap liquor, or wine or even beer for that matter and pouring it into a more expensive bottle in order to pass it off as the more expensive item is not only deceitful and cheap; if you plan to try to sell said bottles behind a bar or at auction, it’s illegal. No one likes a counterfeiter.
