when i'm really puffy, i get really nauseous. i can't eat or think or move and the only thing that sometimes helps is a glass of wine. i discovered that because of mum. my mum's cure-all is brandy. my mum drinks brandy when she feels really sick. she looks better in seconds.

It could be placebo or something as simple as raising the blood sugar.

saint bernards carry brandy in little barrels around their necks to help rescue people stuck in the snow (aww. i hung out with ski instructors and their saint bernards when i was snowboarding in austria. darn those dogs are cute and are super-smart - even though they have a surfeit of saliva)

Actually if you are out in the cold then alcohol should be avoided at all costs.  Alcohol dilates the blood vessels near the skin making you feel warmer, but it actually cuases you to lose heat faster putting you in to a hypothermic state faster.

and brandy has been given to people in shock - long time.

Again not a good idea as shock occurs from a drop in blood pressure and alcohol can lower the blood pressure by dilation of the blood vessels.

so there's gotta be something in that.

i can't drink brandy - or any other dark spirits.
in my defence, i was young and there was an open bar.
so now i can only drink wine (rose, if we're tawking precision)

one of my ayurvedic doctors asked me if i felt better for alcohol. yes, yes, i do. apparently that's because alcohol stimulates liver function.

occasionally when i drink a glass of wine now (medicinally or otherwise) it makes my cheeks flush. that's never, ever happened before. i have a few asian and eurasian friends and, for them, that cheek flushing happens all the time. apparently there is a metabolite in alcohol that asian genes cannot assimilate. that's their story anyway and i like it.

but is that right? and if so, what exactly is that metabolite?

The metabolite of alcohols is acetylaldehyde, a chemical cousin of formaldehyde.

 beer contains b vitamins

That is from the yeast, but you will likely use up more B vitamins dealing with the alcohol than you will derive.

By the way, did you know that they clarify beer with fish guts? Maybe there is some nutrition in that?