Advanced options
Rule of thumb: guests average two drinks in the first hour and one per hour after. A 750ml wine bottle pours 5 glasses, a prosecco bottle 6 flutes, a spirits bottle about 28 singles. Chill more than you open: unopened bottles return, warm prosecco does not. Please drink responsibly; cater properly for non-drinkers and drivers.
What The Party Drinks Calculator Works Out
- Total drinks to plan for: the caterer's formula of two drinks per guest in the first hour and one per hour after, multiplied by the crowd factor (0.75 for a christening lunch, 1.25 for a milestone birthday). Thirty guests over four hours plan for about 150 drinks. The formula counts drinking guests; non-drinkers are catered separately.
- A typical split: 40% wine, 40% beer or cider, 20% spirits fits a mixed UK crowd. A 750ml wine bottle pours five 150ml glasses, a 70cl spirits bottle twenty-eight 25ml singles, and mixers disappear at roughly a litre per six spirits.
- Do not forget: about half a soft drink or water serving per drinking guest per hour on top of the alcohol, and a cup and a half of ice per drink. Ice runs out before anything else.
- Drinks per hour (advanced): override the 2-then-1 assumption for a sit-down dinner (lower) or a stag do (higher).
- Non-drinking guests (advanced): children, drivers and abstainers get about one soft drink an hour each, added to the soft drinks and ice card and to the per-head cost.
- Split and fizz (advanced): set your own wine and beer shares (spirits take the remainder) and the share of wine that is sparkling. Prosecco pours six flutes a bottle and is front-loaded, drunk at arrivals and toasts, so the card tells you how many bottles to chill for the first hour. Plan more white and rose in summer, more red in winter.
- Estimated drinks bill (advanced): bottles and cans at your prices (GBP 7 wine, GBP 1.50 a can, GBP 18 a spirits bottle by default) plus mixers, soft drinks and bagged ice at about GBP 1 a litre or kilo. Sale-or-return from supermarkets and wine merchants turns over-buying into a convenience: buy comfortably more, return the surplus.
- Beer and cider (advanced): cans shown as packs of 10 and cases of 24 so the trolley adds up. Glasses often hire free from supermarkets with a drinks order.