Learn about the alcohol content of wine, beer, and liquor to help you and your friends drink responsibly. Please familiarize yourself with the alcohol percentages of your favorite drinks, both for your safety and your highway companions. AlcoholContents.com also offers data on calories and carbs (carbohydrates) for those concerned about weight gain. Search to find specific alcohol percentages of popular beer, wine, cocktails or liquor. A typical serving of these drinks contains ~14 grams of pure alcohol and most medical professionals recommend limiting your weekly intake to 100 grams or less.
How Strong is Your Drink of Choice?
Below are typical ranges of alcohol percentages by volume (ABV) of some common types of drinks. See the proceeding section for more on how the strength of different alcoholic beverages can be measured:
Beers (3-10%)
Pilsner 3–6%
ESB (Bitter) 3-6%
Lager 4-5%
Porter 4-5%
Brown Ale 4-6%
IPA (India Pale Ale) 6-7%
Stout 5-10%
Wines (8-14%)
Sparkling Wine 8–12%
Table Wine 9–14%
Retsina 10-11%
Dry White 10-12%
Cabernet 11-14%
Barley Wine 11–15%
Fortified Wines (16–22%)
Sherry 17–22%
Marsala Wine 15-17%
Madeira Wine 15-18%
Vermouth 15-18%
Port Wine 16-20%
Bum Wine 15-20%
Spirits (20-70%)
Light Liqueurs 15-25%
Vodka/Whiskey/Rum 40%
Cask Strength Whiskey 60%
Absinthe 55–90%
Neutral Grain Spirits 95%
Rectified Spirits 96%
Absolute Alcohol 96-98%
Other Drinks
Fruit Juice < 0.1%
Alcopops 3-7%
Wine Breezers/Coolers 4-7%
Cider 4–8%
Measurement of Alcohol Strength
There are several methods of measuring the alcohol contents of various beverages. Find details on each below:
ABV – Alcohol by Volume – The standard measure used throughout the AlcoholContents.com website. It simply represents the amount of volume consumed by ethanol compared to the entire volume of the drink. It is expressed as a percentage.
Proof – This term is used among the strongest spirits. To compute a liquor’s proof you simply multiply the ABV by 2. The theoretic highest possible strength of any drink is therefore 200-proof. In reality though the maximum for distilled spirits is 191-proof because not all of the water can be distilled from ethanol.
ABW – Alcohol by Weight – This is similar to ABV but instead of the volume consumed by the ethanol its mass is used instead. Beer brewers often used this measurement in states that require limits on strength of beer sold in food markets (for example 3.2 beer in Oklahoma). This is preferred over ABV in these cases because the ABW is roughly 80% of the ABV. Beer that is 4% alcohol by volume can be sold and still meet the 3.2 ABW limit. You may be unable to join some Beer of the Month clubs if you happen to live in one of these restricted states such as Utah and Colorado.