Comment by pdkl95

> It’s all ethanol

I used to believe that. It seemed obvious to me and a phd chemist friend of mine that - as you say - the different reputations were a cultural/social creation. The drink itself was just different amounts of ethanol.

Then one day that chemist friend of mine decided to get a bottle of Hornitos Reposado. We usually preferred a good bourbon or weird herbal stuff[1]. We drank most of the bottle, but that wasn't unusual for us at the time[2]. We were intending on a normal evening of video games. MTG, and/or VtES. Instead... we ended up spending the evening having the stupidest, most aggressive, pointless, childish, "macho" argument of our lives. It was shockingly out of character for us. The amount of ethanol consumption wasn't large, and we drank it at a normal rate. Both of us had been a LOT drunker in the past. The only significant difference was our unusual choice of tequila.

While I agree that the cultural preconceptions are probably responsible for most of the effect, there is at least some truth behind the reputations of different types of alcoholic beverages, because the actual drink isn't just ethanol. The different brewing/distilling/aging processes produce different amounts congeners[3][4]; their psychological effects might be small, but small effects amplified through social mechanisms are how "culture" is created.

> In many ways that makes these rumor filled, science light, unsubstantiated media stories about “this is the most dangerous drug ever” incredibly irresponsible.

Hear, hear!

> moral panic over Four Loko ... amaro and coffee

Yah, people have probably started putting whisky (Irish or otherwise) in their coffee the morning after they invented the whisky. Also, you probably have to drink the entire giant can of Four Loko to get the same caffeine in a typical cup of coffee.

> Yet it never caused moral panic until the “wrong type of people” started consuming it.

It's disturbing how often this kind of bs ends up just being a fancy form of racism/sexism/${targeted_group}ism

[1] e.g. Pernod, Herbsaint, Chartreuse

[2] Yes, we were regularly drinking WAY too much. 375ml/day/person minimum. WAY WAY WAY too much...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congener_%28beverages%29 "These substances include small amounts of chemicals such as methanol and other alcohols (known as fusel alcohols), acetone, acetaldehyde, esters, tannins, and aldehydes (e.g. furfural)."

[4] Also, the different amounts of sugars means different effects on bloodsugar/insulin/etc. The resulting effects are probably complicated and difficult to explain, but their contribution to the different reputations might be larger than we expect.