ClutchCalcs

Food & Bar

Alcohol & Batch Drink Calculator

Pick your vessel, your drink, and whether you're packing it with ice. We'll scale 92 real bartender recipes to fit anything from a shot glass to a 10-gallon cooler, count your standard drinks, and estimate cost. Built for pro bartenders, wedding caterers, and home entertainers.

1. Vessel / container
2. Ice?

Ice takes up real volume. A 2-gallon jug with heavy ice only holds ~154 oz of liquid, not 256.

3. Drink
4. Cost estimator (optional)

Enter prices per 750ml bottle for any spirit you care about. Leave blank to skip.

How this calculator works

This isn't a toy converter. Every recipe is built from real bartender ratios — the same proportions you'd see behind a craft cocktail bar. You pick a vessel, we account for ice displacement (a real thing — ice takes up 15–40% of your container), then we scale the recipe ingredient-by-ingredient to fill what's left.

The math is straightforward:

  • Usable liquid = vessel oz × (1 − ice %)
  • Scale factor = usable liquid ÷ single-serve total oz
  • Each ingredient = single-serve amount × scale factor
  • Pure alcohol = each spirit's oz × its ABV
  • Standard drinks = pure alcohol oz ÷ 0.6

Bottle equivalents assume the US standard 750ml = 25.36 oz. Cans of mixers default to 12 oz. Use the cost estimator to bid weddings, corporate parties, or just figure out if your jungle juice is worth the receipt.

FAQ

How accurate is the ice displacement? +
Industry rule of thumb: cubed ice in a jug displaces ~25% of volume; crushed or heavily packed displaces up to 40%. We use 15 / 25 / 40 for light / medium / heavy — these match what catering pros plan around.
Why do citrus drinks taste off when batched? +
Lime and lemon juice oxidize fast. For batches that sit longer than an hour, drop the citrus by 10–15% or add it at service. The calculator scales literally — adjust to taste.
Should I pre-batch carbonated drinks? +
No. Champagne, Prosecco, tonic, soda, and ginger beer flatten quickly. Pre-batch the spirits + citrus + syrup, then top with the sparkling component per glass at service. Most wedding recipes here include that note.
What's a standard drink? +
A US standard drink is 0.6 oz (14g) of pure alcohol. That's roughly 1.5 oz of 80-proof spirit, 5 oz of wine, or 12 oz of 5% beer. We count them so you know when to slow service down.
Can I save my recipe? +
Use the Copy results button to grab the full breakdown as text, then paste it into a doc or shopping list.