A standard drink in the United States contains 14 grams (0.6 fluid ounces) of pure alcohol. That number stays the same whether you’re drinking beer, wine, or spirits. What changes is the volume of liquid it takes to reach those 14 grams.
What Counts as One Standard Drink
Because different beverages have different alcohol concentrations, a “standard drink” looks different depending on what’s in your glass. Each of the following contains the same 14 grams of pure alcohol:
- Regular beer (5% ABV): 12 ounces, a typical can or bottle
- Malt liquor or hard seltzer (7% ABV): 8 to 10 ounces
- Table wine (12% ABV): 5 ounces
- Fortified wine like sherry or port (17% ABV): 3 to 4 ounces
- Liqueur or cordial (24% ABV): 2 to 3 ounces
- Distilled spirits like vodka, whiskey, or tequila (40% ABV, 80-proof): 1.5 ounces, a single shot
The key thing to notice is how small the pour gets as alcohol concentration rises. A 5-ounce glass of wine holds less than half the liquid of a can of beer, yet delivers the same amount of alcohol to your body.
How to Calculate Grams Yourself
If you’re drinking something that doesn’t fit neatly into the list above, you can work out the alcohol content with a simple formula. Multiply the volume in milliliters by the ABV (as a decimal) and then by 0.789, which is the density of ethanol in grams per milliliter. For example, a 16-ounce (473 mL) craft beer at 7% ABV contains about 473 × 0.07 × 0.789 = roughly 26 grams of pure alcohol. That’s nearly two standard drinks in a single pint glass.
This math matters more than it used to. Many craft beers now sit at 7% to 9% ABV or higher, and restaurant wine pours often exceed 5 ounces. A generous 8-ounce pour of 14% wine contains close to 28 grams of alcohol, double what the standard-drink framework assumes. If you’re tracking intake, the label on the can or bottle (or a quick search for the ABV) gives you everything you need to run the numbers.
How Fast Your Body Processes Alcohol
Your liver breaks down alcohol at a roughly fixed rate: about 0.015 grams per 100 milliliters of blood per hour. In practical terms, that means your blood alcohol concentration drops by about 0.015% each hour. For most adults, this works out to metabolizing slightly less than one standard drink per hour.
That rate doesn’t speed up if you drink coffee, eat food after drinking, or take a cold shower. Those things might change how you feel, but they don’t change how quickly your liver clears alcohol from your blood. If you have four standard drinks (56 grams of alcohol) in two hours, it will take your body roughly four to five hours from your last sip to fully process it all. Body size, genetics, liver health, and biological sex all shift this number somewhat, but the general pace holds.
Recommended Limits and Binge Drinking
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans define moderate drinking as up to two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women. That’s 28 grams and 14 grams of pure alcohol, respectively. The guidelines are specific that this is a daily cap, not an average over a week. Saving up for a weekend doesn’t count as moderation.
Binge drinking is the pattern that brings your blood alcohol concentration to 0.08% or higher, which typically takes about five drinks (70 grams) for men or four drinks (56 grams) for women within a two-hour window. High-intensity drinking, a more dangerous category, means consuming double those amounts in one occasion: 10 or more drinks for men, eight or more for women.
Why the 14-Gram Number Matters
The 14-gram standard exists so people have a common unit of measurement across very different beverages. Without it, comparing a glass of wine to a cocktail to a pint of beer would be guesswork. Knowing that each contains 14 grams of pure alcohol lets you count what you’re actually consuming rather than counting containers, which can be wildly misleading. A 22-ounce bomber of 9% imperial stout, for instance, holds about three standard drinks even though it’s a single bottle. A frozen margarita at a restaurant can easily contain two or three shots of tequila plus a liqueur, putting it at two to three standard drinks in one glass.
If you want to track your intake accurately, start with the ABV on the label and the actual volume in your glass, then do the quick multiplication. The “one drink” you’re holding may be closer to two or three.