hangover vs cheap port

[Erik Wiechers]

I was wondering if those 2 are related ? Yesterday i drunk a bottle of cheap ruby port my friend bought in a supermarket. Although the port was not that bad i had a bit of a hangover this morning.
Now we shared several bottles in the past together and those were my vintage ports. I never had any hangover whatsoever after that but with this port i had.
Anyone else can concur this ?

[Glenn E.]

There are several possible reasons for a hangover, but the two main ones are dehydration caused by alcohol and methanol impurities.

The former could have been the result of drinking an entire bottle of Port, though I suspect you have sufficient practice that this isn't likely in this case.

The latter can happen with any alcoholic beverage, but is more likely to occur with cheap ones because they just aren't as pure. (There are trace amounts of methanol in all alcoholic beverages.) Our bodies break down methanol into several substances which can be toxic, but the one in question here is formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is fatal in sufficient quantities, but in very low doses it can cause severe headaches. In the case of Port, the methanol contamination would likely come from the aguardente used to fortify the wine and not from the (short) fermentation of the grapes themselves.

So... no guarantees, but yes your hangover could be caused by having consumed cheap port.

The lesson here, of course, is that you should only drink the good stuff!

[Erik Wiechers]

Thanks for the crystal clear explanation Glenn.

[Derek T.]

I don't have the chemistry knowledge that Glenn has but can absolutely agree that cheap alcohol = bad hangovers. I find this particularly acute with wine of any kind but it also applies to beer and whisky.

I challenge anyone to create a hangover from a bottle of Fonseca 1963. Just not possible :devil: