I have a Balmer Peak when golfing. Three beers in and i’m a scratch golfer. 4 and I’m Happy Gilmore on his first outing.

I once worked in IT for an MSP that kept beer on tap in the office for this exact reason. Techs were encouraged to have a beer or two when stumped on an issue. It worked surprisingly well.

This did result in a few years of struggling with alcohol issues tho.

Alcohol is considered a performance-enhancing drug in darts.

For programming, it works the same way as playing music: your focus narrows. Your brain can't do other stuff, either because it's busy moving your neck in time with Meshuggah, or because it's been lightly poisoned by delicious ethanol.

"Ancient Persians reportedly debated big decisions twice: once drunk and once sober."

https://historyfacts.com/world-history/fact/ancient-persians-reportedly-debated-big-decisions-twice-once-drunk-and-once-sober/

The idea that drinking helps has been around a lot longer than 2007. Since basically the discovery of alcohol. Yes, it can help with nerves a little bit, but none of your skills are improved, and most are impaired.

Knew a guy in university that looked like a young Prince Charles that would pop half a tab of LSD whenever he ran into an issue he couldn't solve. Somehow that worked.

This was in the late 90s early 00s, well before Randall made the comic about The Ballmer Peak

I wonder if there's a comparable effect for machining

This also works for pool. Don't ask me how I know.

This applies to a lot of physical activities as well. I have a friend who's a really good bowler, and every one of his 300 games (perfect score for you non-bowlers) has been when he's had exactly 2 drinks. He can't do it with less because he gets too nervous - and more means he gets too sloppy and loses his edge.

We joke and call beer "bowling juice".

Apparently Mr. Ballmer is a real programmer at Microsoft. Even better, he was still working at Microsoft in 2007 when the comic came out, but retired a few years later.