Pankaj Udas said, ‘Drink a little’…now this may be different for everyone. Some people start getting drunk after drinking just one or two pegs, while some people do not even have a Patiala peg. Be it celebration or sorrow, those who drink need an excuse. But do you know what is the connection between alcohol and peg. Why is liquor measured only in pegs and why is the size of peg only 30 ml or 60 ml? Actually, there is a secret behind this to your health. If you are fond of drinking then know why a peg is only 60ml?
When you consume alcohol, your stomach and small intestines absorb the alcohol rapidly and it enters your bloodstream. Alcohol acts as a poison for the body, which the liver filters and removes from the blood rapidly. But if you’re drinking faster than your liver’s ability to digest alcohol, your blood alcohol level (BAC) increases. Due to which you start feeling intoxicated. Normally your liver can digest about a 60 ml peg in 1 hour. This alcohol can usually be in quantities as large as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of liquor. That means if you drink 1 peg in 1 hour, the liver can easily process it. Therefore, 1 peg is made of 50-60 ml only. If you drink 30 ml of alcohol in 1 hour, the body easily digests it slowly.
There are many different types of wine pegs. In this, people drink more pegs of 30 ml, 60 ml. After this there is also Patiala peg. Which is even bigger than this. It contains approximately 90 ml of alcohol. Apart from peg, people also drink shots in which people drink the entire shot in one go.
The unit for measuring alcohol comes from paegl, the unit of measurement in Denmark. Peg has been accepted as the standard unit of measurement of liquor in India. The word peg means an expensive evening glass. The story behind this is that the mine workers of the United Kingdom were given a glass of brandy in the evening after working all day, drinking which would relieve their tiredness of the day. They considered this glass very precious and they called that glass ‘Precious Evening Glass’. This is where the word peg started.
