What beverages are best at relieving the burning caused by spicy foods?

If you're a chili enthusiast with a penchant for peppers, you’ve likely found yourself on the receiving end of a meal that exceeded your tolerance for spice. When that unpleasant burning sets in, a natural reaction will be to reach for a drink to try and tamp down the blaze. But what beverage is best to soothe the scald?

Plain water eases the burning from spicy foods.^[1][1][2] Colder water seems to result in greater relief, possibly because the cold inhibits heat receptors activated by capsaicinoids.^[3]

Milk tends to provide more relief than water.^[2][4][1] This effect seems attributable to a protein in milk called casein, likely because casein can bind to capsaicin, helping to neutralize it.^[4] However, the overall effect of milk is not large, meaning drinking milk will often provide only a small amount of additional relief (and sometimes none at all^[5]) compared to just drinking water.

Beverages with sugar can provide relief from the burning.^[5][2] According to one theory, the activation of sweetness receptors on the tongue inhibits the receptors responsible for spiciness. In at least one study, milk with sugar provided additional burning relief compared to the two components separately.^[2]

Alcoholic beverages have been suggested to help reduce the burning sensation caused by spicy food because capsaicin is soluble in alcohol. However, one of the few experiments to test this found that water with 5% ethanol (comparable to the average beer) provided no additional relief compared to regular water.^[2]