The idea persists, although personally I've never found it to be a problem. A beer to lay the dust followed by a few glasses of wine with dinner and perhaps a late-night snifter of malt whisky never bothered me. The sky did not fall in.

But I asked Dr Creina Stockley for her opinion. Stockley is an adjunct senior lecturer at the University of Adelaide and was former manager of health and regulatory information at the Australian Wine Research Institute. "There is no sound scientific evidence to suggest that mixing drinks exacerbates the potential ill-effects from drinking alcoholic beverages," she says. Nonetheless, she too remembers being told not to mix her drinks by her father.

"The ill-effects come from the effects of the alcohol component common to all alcoholic beverages and its first breakdown product, acetaldehyde, on the body's organs, tissues and cells, and in particular the brain, where alcohol exerts both general and specific effects."

As I'm sure we've all learnt the hard way, the more alcohol we consume, the higher our blood-alcohol concentration, the greater the ill-effects. In medical speak, the effects are dose-dependent.

Stockley says, "The 'hangover' symptoms may include light-headedness, nausea and impairment of concentration and memory as well as co-ordination difficulties. These result from a combination of alcohol, acetaldehyde, congeners including methanol, endocrine and immune system disturbances, dehydration and electrolyte disturbances, and sleep disturbance."