It’s peak summer travel season, so today we’re revisiting a story from the Eater archives by Brenna Houck about how to drink on a plane and still feel like a person afterwards. |
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Airplanes are essentially traveling waiting rooms, filled with folks operating on different energy levels that tend towards extremes: the anxious and the giddy; the fearful alongside the celebratory. This is also part of what makes planes one of the weirdest places to drink alcohol. When I asked my mother, a retired flight attendant, about how she dealt with tipsy passengers in her 20 years of flying, her answer surprised me: “People didn’t get as hammered back then, because flying had more decorum. Plus, they would just fall asleep.” She noted that drinking habits shifted with flight routes, too (“the people going to Las Vegas would drink on the way there and drink coffee on the way out”).
I remember the last time I drank on a flight, because it sucked. I was still in my 20s, and on a 13-hour flight from Paris to Los Angeles that I very nearly missed. I thought it would be a great idea to drink wine on my nervous and near-empty stomach — at the time, my not-yet-fully-formed cerebral cortex thought it would feel dramatic and maybe even a little romantic. In the sobering, long customs line that followed, the hangover felt twice as punishing.
If there’s a way to “hack” drinking on planes, I’d say that it definitely starts with showing up to your flight correctly (hydrated, and having eaten something). My colleague Brenna Houck penned this Eater article in 2019 about how to drink on a plane, and I asked her if she had any new insights from the years that followed. “I would say there's never been a better time to drink on an airplane,” she told me, “since so many carriers offer canned cocktails. Also, the average cocktail [at a] regular bar has become so expensive, that ordering something on a flight can feel almost normal in terms of pricing.”
Read on for an excerpt from her guide to boozing in the sky. — Francky |
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How to Drink (Somewhat Responsibly) on an Airplane |
Drink water before anything else and take all the snacks
There are few things in this world less pleasant than flying. Sure, the airplane is a marvelous invention; humans get to hurl through space and time at 38,000 feet and traverse whole continents and oceans in less than a day (!!!). But somehow that gets overshadowed by everything else that’s inconvenient and uncomfortable about air travel, and often, the only thing to look forward to besides free movies and HGTV reruns is waiting for the flight attendant’s sharp-cornered metal cart.
Contrary to popular belief, there’s no evidence that drinking at higher altitudes — particularly planes — gets you drunk faster. However, there are a few factors that can leave you feeling worse after drinking an alcoholic beverage on a plane. Airlines typically pressurize their cabins to ensure that passengers are receiving enough oxygen, with pressure falling within the range of 6,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level. While most bodies easily adjust to the change, at least one study suggests that the pressurized plane can result in some mild hypoxia (lower oxygen levels in the blood), which contributes to flyers feeling dried out and jet-lagged. The environment also changes the way people experience flavors, meaning your favorite mixed drink on the ground may taste a little “off” in the sky.
But if you have a long flight ahead and complimentary alcohol accessible (hello, international flights), here are some tips to make having an in-flight drink a little more tolerable. 1) Drink water before anything else
It’s really easy to get dehydrated when flying. Humidity inside a typical house falls between 30 and 60 percent, but the air inside a typical plane cabin is often compared to the Sahara Desert, with levels around 10 to 20 percent. (Some newer planes boost the humidity to a balmy 25 percent.) That low humidity helps prevent metal components from rusting, but it also wicks away moisture from your body. Some studies show that dehydration can alter people’s mood. It can also make people more prone to getting sick in a germ-filled cabin, because it dries out mucus membranes in the nose and mouth. And not surprisingly, already-dehydrated people who consume alcoholic beverages may feel the effects of their drink more strongly — and feel worse afterwards.
Continue to read the full story here. |
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