How Many Shots Are In A Standard Mixed Drink?

The difference between a few drinks and a few drinks too many can be vast. To avoid the latter, it's important to keep track of how much alcohol is in your glass. When you're not pouring your own drinks, knowing how many shots of alcohol are in each mixed drink will help you decide when it's time to pump the brakes.

While you can always customize your bev (though avoid these mistakes when asking the bartender to do so), most establishments use a standard measure for each shot of alcohol poured. Figuring out how much alcohol you're ingesting can be a complicated affair given that the ABV in drinks can vary. In some cases, drinks may also use boozy mixers, kicking up their potency significantly. Mixed drinks contain two or more ingredients but generally have less complicated recipes than cocktails (which start at three), making it tougher to track the alcohol if you don't know precisely what goes into them. A half of a shot or roughly 0.6 ounces is the amount of pure alcohol that one serving must contain to be considered a standard drink in the United States.

The amount of alcohol in your drink should not be confused with the volume or size of the beverage. Potent cocktails are often served in small-volume glasses. However, a standard mixed drink like a highball contains about 0.6 ounces of alcohol which is diluted by a larger volume of non-alcoholic carbonated mixer such as soda or tonic water. Because of varying alcohol by volume (ABV) concentrations, the sizes of these standard drinks vary. For example, a mixed drink containing 1.5 ounces (one shot) of a 40% ABV liquor has the same amount of alcohol as a 12-ounce serving of 5% ABV beer or a 5-ounce serving of a 12% ABV wine.

Simple mixed drinks contain a single shot. However, a double or large mixed drink can contain 2 to 3 ounces of liquor. Note that these measurements only apply to standard mixed drinks. Cocktails like a martini consist of an alcoholic base (gin or vodka) and vermouth, a fortified wine, as the mixer. This makes a martini equal to two standard drinks. A margarita contains about 1.5 standard drinks worth of alcohol, while the notorious Long Island iced tea packs a whopping four standard drinks' equivalent of shots.

While it's crucial to gauge how much alcohol is in your drink, it is equally important to consider how quickly it's getting absorbed by your body. Ultimately, it is the amount of alcohol in your system and not in your glass that affects how you feel. When consumed quickly, a drink can have a very different effect than if it is sipped slowly over an extended period. Drinking on an empty stomach also speeds up alcohol absorption, making that standard mixed drink feel more potent.

It's sometimes thought that certain alcoholic drinks have a stronger effect on the drinker. For example, while tequila is associated with wild nights and wine is associated with sedate ones, all alcoholic beverages contain ethanol. Therefore, any difference in the effect they have has more to do with how much alcohol relative to water you've consumed than the strength of any individual glass. 

Interestingly, alcoholic beverages that use carbonated mixers like soda result in faster alcohol absorption by the body. In addition, a 2015 study published in the Drug and Alcohol Dependence journal suggests that using diet beverages as mixers results in higher breath alcohol concentrations (BrAC). Keeping these factors in mind, in addition to how much alcohol is in your drink, can help you enjoy your drinks while not throwing back more than you intended.