Wine and whiskey both contain alcohol.

But your body does not respond to them the same way.

From a health perspective, here is what actually matters🍷🥃🧵

What They’re Made From

Whiskey starts with fermented grains like corn, rye, wheat, or barley.

Different styles use different blends. Bourbon is mostly corn. Scotch is malted barley. Rye and Irish whiskey follow their own rules.

Once distilled, those differences mostly disappear.

Distillation strips away nearly everything except ethanol and water.

Red Wine starts with grapes and grapes naturally contain compounds that survive fermentation and end up in your glass. These include polyphenols, which have been studied for their ability to reduce inflammation, support blood vessels, and protect cells from oxidative stress.

Barrel Aging

Both wine and whiskey usually spend time in oak.

Whiskey can age for decades. Wine typically ages for a few years.

Barrel aging affects taste. It does not affect how your body processes the alcohol.

Sugar and Blood Sugar

Alcohol interferes with your liver’s ability to regulate blood sugar.

That is why drinking on an empty stomach can leave you shaky or foggy.

This effect is made worse when alcohol is paired with sugar.

Whiskey is often mixed with soda, syrup, or bottled cocktail blends and even unflavored whiskeys may contain added sugar or glycerin to smooth the taste. This spikes your blood sugar and crashes it fast.

To avoid the worst affects of whiskey:

- Skip flavored whiskeys and sweet mixers

- Look for "straight" or "bottled in bond" on the label

- Drink it neat or with water

Dry red wine has less than one gram of sugar per glass.

It will only produce a small rise with less of a crash.

Additives

There is no ingredients list required for wine or whiskey in the United States.

When you feel bad after drinking, that lack of transparency makes it hard to know what you are reacting to.

Wine can include Mega Purple, acidity regulators, gums, and excessive sulfites.

Whiskey can include caramel coloring, sugar, artificial flavorings, or texture enhancers like glycerol or glycol.

You cannot really avoid one single additive and ignore the rest.

These things tend to come together.

Tips to avoid them:

For wine, look for low-intervention producers. French and Italian bottles are often less manipulated and not hard to find.

For whiskey, get to know the producer if you can, but other than that, there's not much you can do.

Sourcing and Contaminants

Glyphosate has been found in many conventional wines, even some labeled organic.

Grapes are often heavily sprayed, and glyphosate is not routinely tested for.

Whiskey is distilled.

Distillation removes nearly all chemical residues, including glyphosate.

From a contamination standpoint, whiskey comes out ahead.

But it is not that hard to avoid glyphosate in wine.

My vineyard has never seen glyphosate.

The land has been farmed organically for over 100 years.

Tips:

Either verify that your producer has a similar commitment, or default to French or Italian wines where these chemicals are banned.

Whiskey gives you the downsides of alcohol, and very little else.

But at least you can drink it without a ton of sugar.

Red wine, especially low-intervention red, brings more to the table.

It retains polyphenols, organic acids, and fermentation byproducts.

It also contains quercetin, a compound that slows the breakdown of testosterone in your body.

If you are already drinking and want to choose the lesser of the evils, drink low-intervention red wine.

I used to think alcohol was alcohol.

Beer...Wine. They both got me drunk.

Then I started paying attention.

To how beer left me foggy.

And how wine didn’t.

Here’s what I found 🍺🍷🧵

Wine and Beer Start From Different Foundations

Wine is made from fermented grapes.

Beer is made from fermented grains.

That difference really matters.

Grapes naturally contain compounds that survive fermentation and end up in your glass. These include polyphenols, which have been studied for their ability to reduce inflammation, support blood vessels, and protect cells from oxidative stress.

Beer starts with starch. After fermentation, most commercial beer is filtered, pasteurized, and standardized. That strips out nearly all of the byproducts that might offer anything beyond alcohol and empty calories.

Both wine and beer can include additives that aren't listed on the label. But with wines, more of the beneficial compounds tend to stay in. It is also easier to find low-intervention wines with few additives, and there is a stronger culture of traceability in wine. People care who grew the grapes, how they were grown, and where.

You can find good beer and bad wine.

But at the baseline, wine has more going for it.

Blood Sugar and the Crash

Most people chalk up how they feel after drinking to “just a hangover.”

But part of that foggy, sluggish feeling is driven by blood sugar swings.

Wine, especially dry red wine, has virtually no residual sugar. During fermentation, yeast consumes the natural grape sugars. A standard glass of dry red often contains less than 1 gram of sugar.

Beer, on the other hand, contains maltose and residual starch, both of which break down quickly into glucose. This gives it a higher glycemic load, especially when consumed without food or in large quantities. Blood sugar spikes, insulin rises, and then comes the crash.

Alcohol itself makes this worse.

It inhibits gluconeogenesis, which is your liver’s ability to produce glucose when blood sugar runs low. That makes it harder for your body to recover once blood sugar drops.

This is why beer often leaves you drained and cloudy, even after just a couple.

Wine avoids about as much of that as possible. Less sugar spike. Less crash.

Antioxidants and Inflammation

Red wine contains polyphenols like resveratrol, quercetin, and anthocyanins.

These compounds have been studied for their role in reducing inflammation and protecting blood vessels.

Beer contains some antioxidants from hops and barley, but at much lower levels.

The process of filtration and pasteurization removes most of what might help.

If you’re going to drink, wine actually gives your body something to work with.

Hormonal Effects

Beer contains hops, and hops contain a compound called 8-prenylnaringenin.

It’s a powerful phytoestrogen, meaning it acts like estrogen in the body.

In high enough quantities, it can start shifting hormone levels.

Chronic beer consumption has been linked to lower testosterone, reduced libido, and, in some cases, increased body fat in areas like the manboob.

Wine doesn’t contain estrogenic compounds like this.

Some of the polyphenols in red wine may even slow down how fast your body breaks down testosterone. One lab study found a reduction in testosterone clearance by up to 70 percent.

Beer increases estrogen.

Wine slows testosterone loss.

Transparency and Sourcing

Neither beer nor wine is required to list all ingredients or additives on the label.

That means you're often drinking blind unless you know the producer.

With wine, it's usually easier to trace the origin.

There’s a stronger culture around knowing who grew the grapes and how the wine was made.

Beer doesn’t have that same emphasis on sourcing.

It’s possible, but less common.

If you want to drink better, ask questions and buy from people who can answer them.

Not all alcohol is created equal.

Beer gives you sugar spikes, estrogenic compounds, and fewer nutrients.

Wine gives you antioxidants, lower sugar, and for guys, a possible hormonal edge.

I’m not saying wine is a health drink.

But switching from beer to wine might actually make you feel better.

I’ve noticed it myself. I rarely drink beer anymore.

Curious if anyone else has had the same experience.

Sometimes I figure it's fine to fly economy class for a short flight because I don't need the leg room. Then I'm reminded that business class is insurance against a morbidly obese passenger spilling out of their seat into my personal space. 😑

There’s something that’s been bothering me for a while.

To some 'Bitcoiners', I’m not 'Bitcoin' enough as if that’s even a real thing. Like being called progressive or feminist is supposed to be an insult. LOL.

And then every time I go back in my hometown, like last night, I get called a conspiracy theorist. Even for talking about the most basic bitcoin stuff (like the fact that dollars is not pegged by gold) 😭 and this happens a looot even on my social media

The truth is that nothing messes with your head like realizing that EVERYTHING you’ve been told about one of the most fundamental things (money) was wrong… and THEN suddenly finding yourself surrounded by people who also question the moon landing and whether sunscreen is even useful 🥲

But let me tell you something.

And I’m saying this to myself too. It’s fine. It’s all fine.

People are always trying to put you in a box. You’re either woke or delusional, feminist or comunist, sheep or lunatic. The financial system is a huge scam yes, but I don't question literally everything else. I drink wine and eat carbs on a daily basic and fuck yeah. The truth is, I live in the middle. And I’m OK with that. I absolutely love my life the way it i.

Being in the middle is what makes me human. It’s what allows me to see nuance. It’s what makes life richer, messier, and full of meaning. Also, I'm surrounded be so many and SO DIFFERENT people, I could never close myself up in my own world or diet.

I don't know in which point you are in this bitcoin journey but don’t be afraid to stand in between. Between two fires, two colors, two truths. Because that’s exactly where things start to make sense.

When does one sell their ₿itcoin?

The answer is simple when something means more to them than their ₿itcoin.

I wanted to create a memory of my dad & I going to a track day together, racing motorcycles around the track, battling each other for a better lap time, stopping for lunch chatting about how each other is riding & all the rest of that jazz.

I have watched him race many times before, albeit only ever from the side line, with his health deteriorating fast to the point he may never get on another motorcycle again, I decided I needed to act quickly & I would sell some ₿itcoin to achieve this goal when I mentioned to him I wanted to buy a bike he told me I was "too old to learn how to ride a motorcycle".

That didn't stop me wanting to buy one, I decided I was going to ask for forgiveness instead of permission.

This didn't sit right with me though, so I told my father I'm buying a bike regardless, he said "ok if I can't stop you at least get a bike I want to ride as well & I'll go you half's". This was great I would only need to sell half as much ₿itcoin as I thought.

Although I couldn't shake the feeling of, in 4 or 5 years time I would look at the current ₿itcoin price and work out how much the bike actually cost me.

I then decided to play the fiat game & I would look at getting a loan for the bike.

When I was looking into loans, the companies that would be making money off the interest they charged me wanted to give me more money (so strange right?). I thought why not get more fiat, I took a loan out for the bike plus an extra amount which worked out the same as the price for the bike, I told my dad to keep his money I bought the bike and bought the equivalent amount of ₿itcoin.

The loan is for 7 yrs very typical. Now not only do I get to keep my original ₿itcoin, I got the motorcycle, I'm creating memories with my father before I can't anymore, and I also got to increase my stack.

I have something real, the bike.

I have something strategic, the ₿itcoin.

but most importantly,

I have something priceless, memories with my father.

It seems we like the coin again.

“I’ll only pay in Bitcoin if there’s a discount.”

We hear this a lot.

But if someone needs ten percent off to spend Bitcoin, they’re not your best customer. You don’t need to bow to that.

Your best customers want you to succeed so they can keep coming back.

They’re aligned with The Mission:

Make Bitcoin the money.

This isn’t about telling anyone how to spend.

Pay with dollars. Pay with Bitcoin. Follow your incentives.

But let’s flip the idea that you need to offer a discount to drive Bitcoin sales.

You don’t.

Truly aligned Bitcoiners are looking for ways to grow the Bitcoin pie while still getting the products they want.

If supporting a Bitcoin business helps normalize Bitcoin as a medium of exchange, that helps everyone.

Some people only stack.

Some spend and replace.

Some just spend.

All of that is fine.

What matters is that when they do spend, they want that transaction to build something.

For many, this might be their first real-world Bitcoin purchase.

Or maybe they want to show a skeptical friend that yes, you really can buy things with Bitcoin.

When you accept Bitcoin, you're doing more than taking payment.

You're validating the experience.

You're giving people a reason to keep using the best money we've ever had.

At first it feels novel.

Then it becomes second nature.

Eventually it becomes the default.

You don’t need to offer a discount to meet your customers.

You just need to offer value and stay aligned.

That is how the Bitcoin circular economy wins.

My wife enjoyed this act very much for some strange reason 😂

Jameson Five Oak Cask release is lovely too. Or Midelton Very Rare. Powers 3 swallows and Powers John's Lane too. Or some of the "spot" varieties (green, gold)

Redbreast 12 is a nice mellow Irish whisky

Redbreast 12 is a nice mellow Irish whisky