Last night, PC Magazine's PJ Jacobowitz and I walked into the Park Ave Country Club in Manhattan in the pouring rain to test all 7 of the digital breathalyzers we've reviewed over the past couple of weeks against the big Kahuna: the Lifeloc FC10 digital breathalyzer ($480), which is used by law enforcement.

If you've ever been pulled over for drunk driving, you're probably familiar with the FC10. It's very easy to use: you just turn it on, look for the "wait" to disappear from the LCD screen (which is only about 10 secs), and blow. It gives you a response in under 10 seconds, and in about 20 seconds, it's ready for use again. It can detect blood alcohol levels between 0.000 to 0.600 (which we hope no one ever has to see the latter number, because that's like death). It uses 4-AA batteries.

We used the FC10 as the standard to go by.

At 6:14pm, we took 1 vodka shot. Then 2 minutes later, had another. After 20 minutes (6:36pm), we tested our BAC levels with the FC10, and then with the remaining breathalyzers. We kept going back to the FC10 to make sure we were at the same BAC levels.

We weren't alone at the bar, either. We met two really friendly older men who were amazed that we were sitting there with all of these breathalyzers. Of course they wanted to try them, and being the nice geeks that we are, we let them. Actually, PJ's exact words were, "Sure, we'll blow you." (I looked at him and he realized what he just said.)

All of the breathalyzers were good to go, except for the Brookstone model. We had to get the bartender to blow into it since he wasn't drinking in order to recalibrate it.

BREATHALYZER TEST RESULTS:

FC10
0.041 Jen
0.025 PJ

AlcoScan AL6000
0.02 Jen
0.01 PJ

AlcoHAWK Elite
0.065 Jen
0.000 PJ

10 minutes later...

FC10
0.046 Jen
0.022 PJ

AlcoHAWK Precision
0.091 Jen
0.000 PJ

AlcoHAWK ABI
0.06 Jen (the device gave a warning)
0.03 PJ

15 minutes later...

FC10
0.048 Jen
0.022 PJ

AlcoHAWK Slim
0.06 Jen
0.00 PJ

AlcoHAWK Micro
0.07 Jen
0.03 PJ

Brookstone Digital Alcohol Detector
0.02 Jen
0.00 PJ

30 minutes later...

FC10
0.039 Jen
0.019 PJ

CONCLUSIONS: The digital breathalyzers closest to the FC10's results were the AlcoScan AL6000 ($149.95) and the AlcoHAWK ABI ($99.00). So, we recommend buying either of those two. Parents who just want to know if their teenage kids were drinking as they're stumbling through the doorway, can go with any of these breathalyzers.

So now that we've tested all of these breathalyzers and have come up with our favorites, what do all these BAC numbers mean? Just for you, we've listed a chart that we found in the AlcoHAWK Elite's manual on BAC levels and the specific effects you should be experiencing while at those levels. Check out the chart here.

That's all! We hope you've enjoyed reading about our breathalyzer tests. Now turn your computer off, walk out the door, and go get drunk! But don't say we didn't warn you about the effects!