In my ten years of experience in the distilled beverage industry and five years of experience as an Ambassador for the brand, I am often asked how much tequila a human being can consume without getting drunk.
There are many myths around this issue, and here are the answers you've been looking for. First, to be able to talk about the number of alcoholic beverages that a human can drink without getting drunk, we would have to start by defining some basic concepts and processes that would help us better understand the composition of alcoholic beverages and especially tequila.
To formally measure how much alcohol we can drink, a Standard Drink unit has been established in Mexico. In this article, you will find out how this final measurement was calculated. Based on it, we now know that an adult man should not consume more than an ounce and a half of alcohol per hour and a woman an ounce per hour. We suggest that you read the whole article, so you know how was this amount of alcohol calculated.
Ethanol, also known as ethyl alcohol, is a colorless, strong-smelling, volatile, and flammable chemical compound. It is obtained by distilling fermented products of sugary or starchy mixes such as grapes, molasses, beet, or potatoes. Beverages such as wine, beer, and tequila -among others- contain Ethanol.
Under normal pressure and temperature conditions, Ethanol is a liquid with a boiling point of 78.4 ° C and is miscible in water in any proportion. Its chemical formula is CH3-CH2-OH (C6H6O). It is the primary chemical compound of alcoholic beverages such as wine (13%), beer (5%), liquors (up to 50%), and tequilas (55%). It is essential to mention that Ethanol is the only alcohol suitable for human intake.
Any elaboration process of an alcoholic drink, either distilled or fermented, starts with the growing and farming the raw material that will be used depending on the glass. For example, wine comes from grapes, vodka comes from potatoes, whiskey comes from grain distillates such as wheat, barley, or corn, and beer comes from barley and tequila from agave.
Each beverage is processed differently depending on the kind of drink we are trying to produce in the end, on their specific characteristics and profiles.
In the case of tequila, the process begins with the selection of the Tequilana Weber blue variety agaves. Once this succulent plant has reached its ripening peak, which takes around 6 to 8 years, it is harvested to process its sugars in the distillery.
The harvest of the agave is known as jima. During the jima, the agave leaves are cut and separated from the heart, known as pineapple. The agave pineapple fibers contain starches that will later be turned into simple carbohydrates utilizing a hydrolysis process, and then, they will be fermented using yeasts.
The dead must, which is the result of the agave juice ferment, goes through a distillation process in distillation columns or stills. First, the musts are boiled to separate their more and less volatile components. Next, the captured vapors are cooled and condensed, and the distillate is received in another container to continue its process.
Distillation plays a vital role in tequila processing since it aims to concentrate the alcoholic part by eliminating the water and solid particles that come from the fermentation process. It also gets rid of those impurities and undesirable components that could be harmful to human health. According to the norm, tequila must be distilled twice to eliminate all kinds of impurities that can not be present in the drink.
Depending on the specific characteristics we want our distilled beverage to have, the tequila will go through different aging processes in "pipones" or barrels. Depending on the wood they rest in, and the time they are left to rest, we will obtain various kinds of tequilas.
Lastly, the tequila goes through a filtration process to remove unwanted aromas or dilutions and adjust the content of alcohol the tequila will have according to the norms of the country to which it will be exported.
According to the Article 217 of the Mexican General Law of Health, an alcoholic beverage is considered as such when it has an ethyl alcohol content of 2% to 55% Alc. Vol. Liquids that have a more extensive amount of alcohol than this can't be commercialized as "drinks." According to the Regulation of Sanitary Control of Products and Services, in its only chapter for alcoholic beverages, Article 175, we can consider alcoholic beverages the following:
Likewise, in the Article 176 of that same chapter, based on their alcohol content, alcoholic beverages are classified as:
The Official Mexican StandardNOM-142-SSA1 / SCFI-2014, which establishes the sanitary specifications and the requirements for the commercial labeling of alcoholic beverages that are commercialized in Mexican territory, defines the previous alcoholic beverages in the following way:
In addition to all that has been previously mentioned, it should be noted that there are numerous rules, laws, and regulations related to alcoholic beverages and that these may be federal, state, or local, so it is recommended to review the legal framework of each region of the national territory.
Standard drink (TE for Trago Estándar) or Standard Drink Unit (UBE for Unidad de Bebida Estándar) is a measurement unit used to determine a fixed amount of pure Ethanol per drink. Using this measure allows us to quantify how much a person drinks accurately. It is also crucial when running screening tests or surveys.
The value given to the standard drink is not universal, so it is common to find variations in the amount of pure Ethanol it contains depending on the country or the research done. In addition, there is a wide variety of alcoholic beverages in different concentrations, which are also sold in various ways, such as by glass, by can, by the bottle, by the barrel, or other presentations, which can complicate the use of the TE as a measurement unit.
Regardless of the container used to drink the different types of drinks (shot, old-fashioned glass, glass, jar, etc.), the SD helps us calculate what makes up a drink depending on the alcohol concentration it has. It is also helpful when calculating how many SD each drink presentation has. In summary, the Standard Drink unit is used for:
Several national official agencies have used the Standard Drink unit in their education and health promotion programs, such as:
In Mexico, the Standard Drink has a value of 13 grams according to what is stipulated in NOM-142-SSA1 / SCFI-2014 and NOM-047-SSA2-2015 as a standard drink. Therefore, to determine the amount of pure alcohol a standard glass has, it is necessary to study the country's most consumed beverages. In Mexico, according to the Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health (2014) of the World Health Organization (WHO), 76% of the alcohol that is consumed corresponds to beer, 22% to distilled spirits, 1% to wines, and the remaining 1% to other beverages. Thus, the equivalence o grams of alcohol of the following drinks is represented like this:
BEER, 340 ml - 4.5% Alc.Vol. 12 g of alcohol
Wine, 107 ml- 14% Alc. Vol. 12 g of alcohol
Tequila, 40 ml - 38% Alc. Vol. 12 g of alcohol
We know that 13 g of Ethanol is metabolized in the body of a healthy adult man in about an hour and a healthy adult woman in an hour and a half.
Once we correlate drinks with the time it takes to metabolize Ethanol in the body, it will be easier to quantify our intake and, thus, be aware of the amount of alcohol we have.
Here are some recommendations that we share so you have better control of your alcohol intake that you are having.
Come and visit Casa Sauza; our bartender will prepare the best tequila-based drinks you'll ever have. Have a tequila-based drink right at Tequila, Jalisco!