How to drink without getting drunk

Saw this article cribbed from Esquire, it's an eye-opener, seems totally legit, and not what you expect.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/food-for-men/how-not-to-get-drunk

How to Drink All Night Without Getting Drunk
By Esquire.com

Jim Koch knows beer. He also knows a beer trick that may change your life.
By Aaron Goldfarb
"That guy from the TV commercials!" That's what they call him, either because they don't know his name, or are by now too drunk to remember it. As the co-founder and chairman of the Boston Beer Company, he has appeared in countless Sam Adams commercials over thirty years. And, while this always-smiling man is a regular guy like you and me while walking the street, the second he enters a bar Jim Koch becomes a celebrity.

We met at a midtown Manhattan monstrosity called The Keg Room, where at least four people stopped Koch to say hello as we made our way to a table. One apologized for currently drinking something yellow and fizzy as opposed to a Boston Lager as we sat down.
"So many beer lists are poorly arranged, but this is pretty nice," Koch noted. "A good mix of styles, not just a bunch of IPAs like most bars have nowadays."
Seconds later, he learned that one of the two Sam Adams offerings on tap was their new IPA, Rebel. We ordered two, though there was another surprise: they arrived in shaker pint glasses, which "aren't right," he said. "You won't get all the aromatics."
He reached in his bag and withdrew a Perfect Pint glass, the shapely, angle-rimmed piece of glassware his brewery helped design back in 2007 and sent the waiter back to the tap. "I always carry one with me," he said. "You'll see…"

He was right - I did see. And then I saw a whole slew of beers almost magically appear on our table. Nitro stouts, sours, two big bottles from their Belgian-inspired Barrel Room Collection. That's when Koch snapped into full salesman mode, enthusiastically talking about Brewing the American Dream, his brewery's micro-lending program which has helped over 300 food and beverage startups over the past half-decade. But as much as Koch likes to pitch his company, what the man really loves to do is drink beer.
He popped the top on Tetravis, the brewery's version of a Belgian quadruple. I had never had it before and was blown away by its freshness and bursting dark fruit flavors, atypical of most quads, which are usually muted due to aging and oxidation. Noticing my pleased reaction, Koch quickly moved to uncork the second bottle, a Belgian stout named The Thirteenth Hour.
"I'm gonna be wasted before this interview is up!" I laughed.
That's when things got dead serious for the first time all afternoon. Koch leaned in toward me, stared straight into my eyes, and whispered.
"You wanna know my secret? How I can drink beer all night long and never get drunk?"
In fact, I had always wondered that. Though this was the first time I'd ever formally met Koch, I'd "met" him in the past at a few beer festivals. Those sorts of events are always kind of crazy, with people imbibing dozens of beer samples in a short period and soon stumbling around large convention halls drunk. Brewers included. But not Koch, who I'd long noticed was always lucid, always able to hold court, and hold his own with those much younger than him. This billionaire brewing raconteur was doing likewise with me at 4 PM on a Thursday afternoon despite the fact we were both now several beers deep. So what was the secret?
"Yeast!"
"Yeast?"
"Active yeast. Like you get at the grocery store."
Koch told me that for years he has swallowed your standard Fleischmann's dry yeast before he drinks, stirring the white powdery substance in with some yogurt to make it more palatable.
"One teaspoon per beer, right before you start drinking."
He'd learned the trick from his good friend "Dr. Joe," a craft beer legend in his own right. Educated at Harvard with a troika of degrees (a BA, a JD, and an MBA), Koch is no slouch, but the late-Joseph Owades was a flat-out genius. With a PhD in biochemistry from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and an early job in the fermentation sciences department at Fleischmann's, Owades probably knew more about fermentation and alcohol metabolism than perhaps any man who has ever lived. Koch calls him, in fact, "The best brewer who's ever lived." He used that immense knowledge to eventually become a consultant for most of the progenitors of America's early craft brewing movement such as Anchor Brewing in San Francisco, New Amsterdam Brewing in New York, and, yes, the Boston Beer Company. There he became good friends with Koch, helped perfect Boston Lager, and passed on to Koch his little yeast secret.

You see, what Owades knew was that active dry yeast has an enzyme in it called alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH). Roughly put, ADH is able to break alcohol molecules down into their constituent parts of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Which is the same thing that happens when your body metabolizes alcohol in its liver. Owades realized if you also have that enzyme in your stomach when the alcohol first hits it, the ADH will begin breaking it down before it gets into your bloodstream and, thus, your brain.
"And it will mitigate - not eliminate - but mitigate the effects of alcohol!" Koch told me.
In his final years Owades even patented a product called Prequel, an all-natural pill similarly designed to limit drunkenness. No companies wanted to deal with the potential liabilities of the product, and Owades died in 2005 at the age of 86.
Of course, I had to honor my longtime hero Koch, and a new beer hero I'd just learned about in Owades, and try this trick myself. So the next day I grabbed a six-pack of beer and a packet of Fleischmann's and went to work. The older I get, the more of a lightweight I surely become, but after shoveling down six teaspoons and tilting back six bottles I felt nothing more than a little buzzed. Koch told me he keeps a breathalyzer around at all times just to assure he's never too drunk. He never is. And, though I had no tangible "proof," besides the fact I was still awake, I was pretty sure I wasn't all that drunk either. Forever more I'd be yet another guy discreetly carrying a white powder around at bars. I'd advise you do likewise.

THAT must have been Marion Ravenwood's secret!  I always wondered..  

Thats disgusting!   

The whole point of alcohol is the sweet bliss of inevitable oblivion, the removal of all life's sharp edges and their transformation into soft blurs, the slipping of one minute into the next in a seamless stream of trouble free dreamlike conciousness.
Oh and dancing on tables waggling your sporran at the ladies in the Duck n' Muck and pissing in Daves fields on the way home  

  

Well, I think Petty has a general point. Why drink alcohol if not to get the effect of it? Isn't that an inherent quality of the product?

Though I get that it's handy for the stuations described.

well, i think there is a difference between being on a buzz, cheerful and finding everything funny to "I think it's a good idea to piss out of this window and oh fuck the ground just hit me in the face" kind athing. 

also there are people who can't handle being drunk. they get angry-drunk or rude-drunk, and i think those people might want to know how to drink without ending up drunk=being a dick.

also, anohter tip is just to drink less and useyour mind. know what your body can handle and yeah.. or just go by the easy rule, one drink an hour, eat a lot and drink water too. you'll also avoid a ahngover that way.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Thats disgusting!   

The whole point of alcohol is the sweet bliss of inevitable oblivion, the removal of all life's sharp edges and their transformation into soft blurs, the slipping of one minute into the next in a seamless stream of trouble free dreamlike conciousness.
Oh and dancing on tables waggling your sporran at the ladies in the Duck n' Muck and pissing in Daves fields on the way home  

  

I agree with Norc, I think she's very sensible. If I drink I fall asleep, whereas some get nasty, violent, & we dont want that !

I get dizzy, and dizzy, and dizzy.

i get very giggly and then very sleepy lol, but i have never been truly shitfaced though..

In the medieval ye olden times they only drank ale and nobody drank water because it was dangerous to. They must have been continually buzzed, like Petty.
Pimms is the worst because it tastes like delicious fruit juice and before you know it you are hurling chunks onto your white slilettos.

I don't seem to get crazy drunk like I used to, I mean I still end up slurring/falling over/blaming the french/yelling abuse at pigeons but I'm usually (partially at least) aware of what I'm doing ('This is a stupid idea, oh well!', apparently I usually end up apologizing for my behavior!) but by the time I've knocked back enough to fell a sheep I've normally either started to sober up or fallen asleep.

You all sound like amateurs   Drinking isn't a sprint its a marathon. If you dont have the endurance and the pacing all sorts of terrible things can happen, you might even just pass out and wake up sober!   (Handy tip, always carry a spare bottle in case this ever happens so you can remedy the problem immediately and reabsorb the hangover)

You should give classes.   

its always handy to have a girlfriend ready to hold your hair back as you pebbledash the pavement. A pint of water by your bedside for the raging thirsts at 4am in the mornin, and a good greasy kebab or curry/rice and chips to soak all the alcohol up. Basically if the room spins when you lie down on your bed, you are screwed.

Water is good, irn bru is better.   (There is a reason its the most popular soft drink in Scotland, its the best for hangovers)

Mancunians use non diet coke, its the sugar or something. It probably replaces your electrolites or whatever those things are you miss when you barf too much.

Bru is very sweet, it also contains colourings that mean its banned in several countries- you can rely on we Scots to come up with even a soft drink thats illegal elsewhere.   

So if the alcohol doesn't get you the soft drink will?   

I'm betting that any regular drinker already has a healthy population of just such yeasty beasties residing in his/her gut, ready to suck up half the alcohol before it can get into the bloodstream. (there are deadbeats everywhere ) I know when I was on heavy antibiotics and all the beasties inside me were killed, I suddenly became a real lightweight.  

I am teatotal, have been for 20 years, now even Mon Cherie cherry liqueur chocolates make me feel squiffy.   

I knew something was wrong with you!    (explains your love of PJ mind you)

I didn't drink a whole lot until I moved to New York: rapid transit from my doorstep to one of the largest concentrations of bars and gin-joints in the world.  There's just no help for it.  

In that case, you seem to be in the perfect location to apply the scientific method to this hypothesis, Halfy. And a weekend coming up too!

Do you think you'd be able to present your data to us all on Monday?

Yeah reckless alcohol experiments!    (And I do rather like the sound of this New York place)