Cocktail ABV calculator

ABV means alcohol by volume: the share of a liquid that is pure ethanol. On a distilled spirits label, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau requires that figure as a percent of alcohol by volume. A bottle marked 40 percent ABV is 40 percent ethanol. Juice, syrup, soda, and citrus are 0 percent unless the bottle says otherwise.

This calculator adds the ethanol in every ingredient you enter, then divides by the finished volume. Ethanol in fluid ounces is the ingredient volume in ounces times its ABV, divided by 100. Add those amounts. That sum is the pure alcohol in the glass before ice melts.

Shaking or stirring with ice adds water. The dilution field is that water as a percent of the volume you measured, not a percent of the finished drink. The default is 20 for a shaken drink, 15 for a stirred drink, and 0 for a built drink, which is poured over ice and not shaken. You can type another number. Final volume equals the measured volume times 1 plus the dilution percent divided by 100. Final ABV equals the ethanol ounces divided by that final volume, times 100.

A US standard drink is about 0.6 fluid ounces of pure alcohol. That is the definition published by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Standard drinks on this page equal ethanol ounces divided by 0.6. The same recipe can be one standard drink or more than one. The glass size does not decide it. The pour and the ABV do.

The batch scaler does not change ABV. It multiplies each ingredient by the number of servings and shows the total in US fluid ounces and in milliliters. One US fluid ounce is 29.5735 milliliters. Use it for a pitcher, then stir before you pour. These figures are estimates from the numbers you type. They are not a lab test of a brand recipe, and they are not a reason to drink more. Enjoy responsibly. Must be 21+.