Can't believe I'm the first person to come here and say that this idea that different liquors produce different highs is bulls***. I don't buy it. Alcohol is alcohol.
I agree with you, partially. Ethyl-alcohol is the primary intoxicant in any hard drink. Period. So the mixing concept (beer before liquor makes you sicker, etc,) is total horse manure. By extension, the primary drunkeness feeling/symptoms, is always going to be the same no matter what.
But your "high" is more complicated and intangible than that. If I got my BAC to 0.1 drinking straight vodka shots, versus drinking winecoolers, the trip would be a lot different even though I'm just as drunk. All that sugar has an affect on your mood, metabolism, etc. The feeling of being that full of liquid also has an affect of your comfort level and the amount activity your body is willing to put up with. etc,
Beers and Wines especially have all kinds of chemical components that create a much different biochemistry, than say if you drank the same amount of alcohol by volume of Everclear.
Some of its psychological too. If you loved drinking wine with your wife of 20 years, but now she has run off with someone else, you probably won't enjoy drinking wine anymore, at least while you are still bitter about it..
Yes, in general these are subtle, I personally don't feel
that much difference between different forms of alcohol, and when it comes to hard liquor it tends to vary more by mixer than by liquor.. but I will admit they are there.