Most of us are guilty of enjoying a cheeky tipple at the end of a hectic week or a drink or two on a Saturday night.

But, if you want to avoid a sore head this weekend it's not just about how much you drink, but what you drink.

All types of booze are variations of the chemical ethanol, and the liver and brain break this down the same way.

But your favourite may also include extra ingredients that can make you feel rough.

Before you hit the clubs and pubs this weekend, check out this guide:

Beer

You are least likely to end up with a pounding skull if you drink beer – but even so, moderation is key.

Beer has a low alcohol content – between 3-6% by volume for lager. It also contains cereals and yeast which slow down alcohol absorption from the stomach into the bloodstream.

Beer is also more diluted with water than spirits and wines. This makes it filling and it takes longer to drink, giving your body time to process it.

Hangover rating: 4/10

White wine

White wine, contains around 10-11% alcohol. It’s not just this higher content that leaves us with a notorious ‘white wine hangover’. It makes your stomach secrete more acid, irritating the lining and making you feel sick.

It also contains sulphites – chemical compounds that stop bacterial growth and act as preservatives. Inside the digestive system, these break down and create sulphur dioxide, which can trigger headaches. In asthmatics, it can cause breathing problems.

Hangover rating: 6/10

Bubbly

Champagne and ­sparkling wine is made in roughly the same way as wine.

But more yeast is added and it ferments in the bottle again, making carbon dioxide bubbles.

The extra fermentation boosts alcohol to about 12%, plus bubbles speed up alcohol absorption.

One theory is that carbon dioxide in the bubbles opens the pyloric sphincter, a valve that controls the emptying of the stomach into the intestines. Alcohol can then pass faster into the bloodstream.

Hangover rating: 7/10

Vodka

This is a spirit made by fermenting grains or vegetables, like potatoes, with yeast. It is then filtered again and again to make it as pure as possible.

It packs a powerful punch – most brands are 40% alcohol mixed with water. Despite this, a study by the British Medical ­Association found vodka to be the least likely drink to give you a hangover. It is so pure it contains no ‘congeners’, or by-products made during fermentation, which are ­difficult for the body to break down.

But as it is virtually tasteless with a mixer it’s easy to drink too much. Studies found it is most often involved in binge-drinking deaths.

Hangover rating: 3/10

Gin

Like vodka, gin is a pure, clear spirit – but it also contains an extra ­ingredient which could leave you nursing a headache.

Whatever alcohol you drink, one of the main symptoms of a hangover is thirst. This is because all alcohol blocks the action of the hormone vasopressin, which tells the kidneys to hold on to water and we wee more as a result.

In gin, that dehydration effect is even greater because it’s flavoured with juniper berries which are diuretic – and encourage the body to get rid of even more water.

Hangover rating: 4/10

Red wine

Red wine has a higher alcohol content than white – around 12-14% because the grapes are picked at a later, more potent stage.

Red wine is also fermented longer with skin and pips, meaning it creates another more toxic type of alcohol called methanol – or wood alcohol.

The liver processes ethanol in the alcohol first when you drink red wine. However, after-effects are likely to drag on because it has to break down ­methanol too, which means you will still be suffering several hours later.

Hangover rating: 7/10

Brandy

Overdo the brandy, made out of distilled red wine, and you’re likely to wake up with the worst headache of all. It contains 40% alcohol and is stored for years to ferment in wooden casks to give it a distinctive flavour.

It also has the highest number of ­congeners – these take the body a long time to break down in the liver, whose job it is to filter out poisons. The older the brandy, the worse the damage.

Dr Ian Calder of London’s National Hospital for Neurology and ­Neurosurgery compared brandy to rum, whisky and gin. He found brandy gave the most severe hangover as it has so many poisonous by-products.

Hangover rating: 9/10

Whisky

At around 40% alcohol, whisky’s known for giving drinkers a case of whisky mist. It’s distilled from fermented grains which are aged in wooden casks, and much of the hangover is caused by the fact that many drink it neat.

A Swedish study found that among people drinking the same amount of ethanol, those drinking it in the form of spirits, such as whisky, had the quickest and highest peak in blood alcohol concentration, less than an hour after drinking began.

One BMA study also found Bourbon whiskey is twice as likely to cause a hangover than the same amount of vodka.

Hangover rating: 8/10

Originally published on Mirror Online.