Order a Port Tonic on a terrace in Porto and it arrives with a straw in it, and there is always someone who pulls it out with a flourish. Straws get you drunk faster, they say. Does drinking through a straw get you drunk faster? No. Not because of the straw. But because of three things that happen to sit in that same glass: carbonation, the kind of tonic, and the speed at which you drink.
Here is what the evidence actually says, what it is worth, and why the Port Tonic is such a useful example.
Where the myth comes from
The popular version goes like this. A straw creates suction, suction means less oxygen, and feeling drunk is partly about a lack of oxygen. That reasoning survives about half a sentence. VinePair traced the claim back to a student blog post from 2011, not to a study.
Alcohol enters your blood through the stomach lining and, far more so, through the small intestine, where the surface area is vastly larger. How fast that happens depends mostly on how quickly your stomach empties. Nothing that goes on in your mouth changes that route.
The one study that exists
Exactly one experiment has tested it properly. In 2017 Verhoff and colleagues had eleven young adults drink the same beverage twice, a week apart, once normally and once through a straw, with blood samples taken up to two hours afterwards.
The result: among the six participants drinking spirits, blood alcohol was clearly higher with a straw, right after drinking and at 15 and 30 minutes. Beer and red wine showed no meaningful difference.
The caveat is a big one. Eleven people spread across seven different drinks means one or two participants per drink category. The effect only shows up at high alcohol strengths, where a straw mostly changes how you sip. Treat it as a hint, not proof, and certainly not as evidence that straws make you drunk.
Carbonation genuinely does something
This is where it gets interesting. Ridout and colleagues gave twelve participants the same dose of alcohol, once as champagne and once as champagne with the carbon dioxide removed. The sparkling version produced significantly higher blood alcohol levels and slower reaction times on a divided attention task.
Roberts and Robinson ran the equivalent with vodka in 2007. With a carbonated mixer the mean absorption rate was 4.39 mg/100 ml per minute, against 1.08 with still water. The likely mechanism is faster gastric emptying, pushing alcohol into the small intestine sooner.
A brake here as well. In 7 of the 21 participants absorption did not speed up, or slowed down. This is a difference in pace, not in total alcohol, and it was measured in a lab on an empty stomach. Add a bowl of olives and the picture changes.
Diet tonic hits harder than the sugared kind
The counterintuitive one. Marczinski had sixteen social drinkers take the same dose of vodka, once with a regular soft drink and once with the diet version. Peak breath alcohol came out at 0.091 g/210 l with the diet mixer against 0.077 g/210 l with the sugared one, roughly 18 percent higher.
Sugar slows gastric emptying, and without it that brake disappears. The participants could not tell the two apart, which is the unpleasant part: you feel equally sober while you are not.
Temperature and the rest
Cold drinks go down more easily, and that is where the effect ends. The temperature of your glass does almost nothing to absorption itself. The same goes for glass shape, straws, and whether or not you stir.
Why the Port Tonic, of all drinks
Take a standard Port Tonic: a generous measure of white port, topped with tonic, ice, a slice of orange. All three real factors sit in that one glass.
It is carbonated. There is a fair chance the tonic is a diet one, because that is what most bars pour. And it drinks like lemonade, because the bitterness of the tonic covers the sweetness of the port. That last point is the one that matters. Two Port Tonics quietly account for half a bottle of port, and you cannot taste it.
The straw, at most, sets the pace, and you can manage your pace without one.
What to do with this
Not: use it as a trick to get drunk faster. Rather: know that a carbonated long drink with diet tonic arrives sooner than the same port served neat, and adjust your pace accordingly.
If you want the Port Tonic without that acceleration, an alcohol free aperitif over tonic works just as well. Then the carbonation is only bubbles.
Frequently asked questions
Does drinking through a straw get you drunk faster?
No, not because of the straw itself. One small German study found a higher blood alcohol peak for spirits drunk through a straw, most likely because people sip faster that way. No difference was found for beer or wine.
Do bubbles get you drunk faster?
Yes, modestly. Carbonation speeds up gastric emptying, so alcohol reaches the bloodstream sooner. This has been measured with champagne and with vodka mixed with carbonated water.
Is diet tonic better or worse than regular tonic?
Worse for your blood alcohol. Without sugar the stomach empties faster and the alcohol peak runs about 18 percent higher than with a sugared mixer.
Does drinking your glass less cold help?
Barely. Temperature has a negligible effect on absorption. Your drinking pace is the factor that counts.
What we could and could not verify
| Claim | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Straw raises the peak for spirits, not for beer or wine | Confirmed, but a very small study (n=11) | Verhoff et al. 2017 |
| Suction or lack of oxygen explains the straw effect | Incorrect | Physiology of alcohol absorption |
| Carbonation in champagne raises blood alcohol | Confirmed (n=12), abstract gives no exact peak values | Ridout et al. 2003 |
| Carbonated mixer speeds absorption to 4.39 against 1.08 mg/100 ml/min | Confirmed (n=21), no effect in 7 of 21 | Roberts and Robinson 2007 |
| Diet mixer gives roughly an 18 percent higher peak | Confirmed (n=16), 0.091 against 0.077 g/210 l | Marczinski 2013 |
| A straw raises absorption by 40 to 50 percent | Not traceable to a primary source, so left out | none |
| MythBusters tested the straw myth | Not confirmed in the episode listings | none |
Sources
- Verhoff MA et al.: “Ein Beitrag zum Strohhalmtrinken alkoholischer Getränke. Messbare Effekte nur bei Spirituosen”, Blutalkohol 54(2), 2017, pp. 61 to 69. Record via TRID
- Ridout F, Gould T, Nunes C, Hindmarch I: “The effects of carbon dioxide in champagne on psychometric performance and blood-alcohol concentration”, Alcohol and Alcoholism, 2003. PubMed
- Roberts C, Robinson SP: “Alcohol concentration and carbonation of drinks: the effect on blood alcohol levels”, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 2007. PubMed
- Marczinski CA et al.: “Artificial sweeteners versus regular mixers increase breath alcohol concentrations in male and female social drinkers”, Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 2013. PubMed
- NIAAA: Alcohol Metabolism
- Cederbaum AI: Alcohol Metabolism, Clinics in Liver Disease, on gastric emptying as the determining factor
- VinePair: Will Drinking Through A Straw Get You More Drunk?