Is this humanly possible?

In my Rune Factory like thing, one of my character's drinks a full cask of mead in one sitting.
For The Record: A: How much Mana you have/your body naturally produces dictates how fast you can process alcohol, and B: She has two stomachs. (She says 'three' but mentions her 'third' one is for dessert only, so figurative) I should also note that the speed at which you process alcohol does not prevent the after effects of hangover + Drunkeness.

For one, She's definitely not human (She's a half dragon race and dragons are insanely powerful in this world as they typically are) but anatomy wise they're similar to humans. That being said, being half dragon they have insane metabolism and ability to consume compared to an average 'human'.

It's entirely possible that she simply produces an insane amount of mana to 'process' the alcohol (in the main character's words, he describes her mana as 'insanely strong' and 'turbulent') but I mean more on the physical side. I could have it that because of the amount of mana the Dragon folk produce, that most drinks are processed almost instantly and that's how she's able to drink it all.

I suppose it would depend on the size of the cask itself, it's big enough to require two men to carry it, but not an exact weight.

And before anyone asks, yes, she does get insanely drunk after. But the alcohol itself doesn't remain in her physical system very long.

Maybe I'll explain it that it's being burned up by mana as she's consuming it, and she still stores a large amount of it physically in her stomachs as she finishes it?

 

Aside from the alcohol and non-human issues, I googled "cask size" and went with the first option. It said that a standard American "bourbon barrel," the smallest listed, has a volume of 190-200 liters.

That's 50 gallons or so. 440lbs, if mead has the same density as water.

Even without worrying about the metabolic effects of the liquor (or hypoatremia) if she's roughly human size, she's going to need the world's largest and fastest kidneys and bladder just to get the liquid through her in time to chug the next bucket of it. I'm going with "no" unless you adjust the size of a cask to something that a person could lift.

 

The Cask is big enough to require two people to lift, but small enough that a strong enough person could lift it themselves. I'd say it's about half or even a quarter the size of a 'normal' cask. This was one of the reasons I waited to mention it's weight/size.
As for her not being 'human' the dragon kin are like 90% human with some dragon like features (mainly in how much they can consume, both food and drink) for all intents and purposes their organs have near the same limitations.
I have yet to decide if I want them to be larger than the average human (in scale) or not.

 

Is it humanly possible? Absolutely not. The person would die of alcohol poisoning. The ingestor would have to have a different way of metabolizing the ethanol.

For more about how alcohol is metabolized by the liver, visit: Overview: How Is Alcohol Metabolized by the Body?

How important to the story is it that she drinks a whole cask?

 

I looked up camels, figuring they're the world-champion drinkers, and found that they weigh roughly between 900-1300lbs. The numbers for how much they can drink at a time are all over the map, ranging from 20 gallons to 53 gallons (seems high to be able to drink 1/3-1/2 your body weight but...)

Can she, as half -dragon, with magical booze-coping abilities, of indeterminate size drink an unknown volume of alcohol in one sitting?

Yes.

 

Captain America can't get drunk. He metabolises alcohol too fast for him to get drunk.

There are dragons in your world. Who's really going to care about the realism of whether someone can or can't get firkin blotto? As to how she gets rid of the equivalent of about 100 cans of regular soft drink, make something up. Maybe her insides are so hot (her being a dragon and all) that she has to drink ten times as much liquid as a normal human just to retain enough, because the rest of it evaporates through her head or something.

Once you have dragons, all realism goes out the window.

 

I expect she will burp flames.

 

Or perhaps, being only part dragon, the flames don't come out of her mouth.

 

Oh dear.

 

Oooh, I like it:

 

Have you ever tasted mead?

 

My dad used to make it. Good stuff, but by the barrelful might cloy a bit.

 

Nae doot.

 

Yeah I'm just wanting the logic to be a tiny bit grounded in reality. (kind of like how The Hulk can drink all he wants and not feel pain or regret, until the day after when he has a hulk sized hangover) She might be dragon (or half dragon) but the dragon folk of my story are close enough to humans that a human doctor could treat them. (though it would take a LOT of medicine to cure something)
I like the idea that her insides are so hot that she pretty much has to consume that much to even partially quench her thirst, so I might go with that. As for the kidney thing, let's just go with the fact that dragon kidneys are magical and can do impossible things. (similar to their stomachs)
As for the cask size I'll go with the Firkin which should be good enough. It makes sense that they would store the mead in small, airtight containers. Sand Sea Mead is sought after because it contains a lot of mana, but is highly combustible as a result.

She will not burp flames, but she consumes the enormous amount of Mead (which is highly combustible and conductive of mana) to perform a fire spitting trick on a scale that only a Dragon Kin could perform. She does belch afterward, it's comparable to thunder rolling lol

I know I don't have to follow realism since dragons are involved, but I at least want the logic to kinda make medical sense.

Somewhat like in Naruto how they have a system that explains how their Chakra works (It's like a second nervous system for spiritual energy) it doesn't have to closely follow reality, it just needs to be grounded in medical science.

 

Heh, it's a good thing bedside manner isn't one of the requirements of being a hero.

 

Can the same thing be accomplished by consuming a smaller amount of something with a much higher alcohol content?

 

Maybe, but one of the myths of the Dragon Kin (they have different names for that race depending on the continent) is that they can consume absurd amounts of alcohol in a single sitting.
A Fully matured Dragon Kin (they're much bigger than standard humans) can consume a small cask by themselves just casually.
Mead is just the first drink that came to mind, but I imagine something higher in alcohol content might do better and require her to drink less.
In my head I just wanted it to be an inhuman amount to drink at once, but still something (somewhat) logical.

 

My record is two litres of mead in one sitting. I forgot it's wine, not beer. I fell over.

 

Isn't Mead typically treated like both in works of fiction though? It looks like a beer but it's actually a wine?

 

It's a deep amber or gold, still and clear. It looks a bit like thick brandy or whisky. Yes, though, it's often treated as being similar to an ale in fiction, though it really isn't, generally being about 12-15% ABV.

 

Now I really want to visit your restaurant. That'll be the code word.