Buying zero proof beverages by the finished serve: five checks

A shelf price tells you almost nothing in this category, because the formats are not comparable. A single serve can, a 700 ml bottle poured neat and a concentrate stretched ten ways all sit next to each other at similar prices and deliver wildly different numbers of drinks. Buying zero proof beverages well means comparing them by the finished serve instead.

The five checks, in order

Each check is explained below.

What to take away

Do the conversion first

Take the maker's own stated serve. A bottle meant for 50 ml pours stretched with 150 ml tonic: a 700 ml bottle gives fourteen drinks. A ready to drink can gives one.

Divide price by servings, and the shelf reorders itself. On that arithmetic, the 700 ml bottle costs less per drink than the can whenever its price is under fourteen times the can's, before the mixer is counted. Whether a bottle should be stretched at all is something you settle in a glass, as our beginner's tasting notes explain.

Then add the second half of the drink. Tonic water, ginger beer and premium soda are not cheap, and at a 3 to 1 ratio the mixer can cost more per drink than the bottle you agonized over. If the budget is tight, changing mixer usually saves more than changing brand.

Ice is not free

Anyone building drinks at volume buys ice, and it is worth knowing what you are buying. FDA's note that it regulates packaged ice as a food sets out the requirements. Packaged ice in interstate commerce must be produced under current good manufacturing practice, held and transported in clean and sanitary conditions, and made with water that is safe and sanitary.

Inspectors check three things at a plant: plumbing keeps the ice water supply clean, the water meets Environmental Protection Agency drinking water standards, and the facility stays sanitary. Packaged ice labels must meet food labeling rules like any other food.

Venues costing a serve face the same line, as our notes on what a drink costs to put in front of a guest set out.

Practically, that means ice is a line in the budget with a quality question attached, not a rounding error.

Read the alcohol term before you pay for it

Two products at different prices can carry different claims about alcohol, and the words are not interchangeable. In its compliance policy on dealcoholized wine and malt beverage labeling, FDA says it does not consider "non-alcoholic" and "alcohol-free" to be synonymous, and that "alcohol-free" may be used only when the product contains no detectable alcohol.

For a buyer who needs no alcohol at all, that word is the one to look for. For everyone else, it explains why two similar looking bottles are labeled differently.

Calories only mean something with a serving size

Products in this category vary enormously in sweetness, and the pack can make that hard to see. FDA's explanation of calories on the Nutrition Facts label defines the figure as the total energy from all sources in a serving, printed in large bold type.

The same page says serving sizes reflect the amount people typically consume, and that 2,000 calories a day is a general guide for nutrition advice rather than a personal target.

For comparison shopping, the useful move is to normalize. Work out the figure at the serve you will actually pour, not at the serve on the pack.

Where the savings actually are

The full arithmetic sits in our budgeting guide, and cutting the waste line depends on the storage practices that keep a bottle usable.

Common questions