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Drink Calculator
How much beer, wine, spirits, soft drinks and ice to buy for a party, from your guest count and how long it runs.
Your results
Alcoholic drinks
84
Beer (bottles)
42
Wine (bottles)
6
Spirits (750 ml bottles)
1
Soft drinks and water
72
Ice
21.0 kg (46.3 lb)
One drink in the first hour and one an hour after that. It sounds conservative and it is close to right across a whole room — the people drinking three an hour are balanced by the ones nursing a beer all evening and the ones driving home.
Split the alcohol roughly half beer, a third wine, the rest spirits, then adjust for what you know about your guests. A bottle of wine pours five glasses; a 750 ml bottle of spirits makes sixteen drinks at 45 ml.
Buy far more ice than feels sensible — 700 g a head, and more in summer. Ice goes into drinks, under drinks and around bottles in tubs, and it is the one thing at a party you cannot improvise at eleven at night. Non-drinkers need real options too, not just tap water.
Questions people ask
How many drinks per person for a party?
One in the first hour, one per hour after. For a four-hour party that is four drinks per drinking guest — buy for that and you will have a little left over, which is the correct outcome.
How much wine for 30 people?
About nine bottles over four hours if wine is a third of the drinking. A bottle is five glasses, and half-bottles per head over an evening is the old rule that still holds.
How much ice do I need?
About 700 g per person, and closer to a kilo in hot weather. Half of it never touches a drink — it goes in the tubs keeping bottles cold.