A standard drink in the United States contains 0.6 fluid ounces of pure alcohol. That’s roughly 14 grams. The actual volume of liquid in your glass varies depending on what you’re drinking, because different beverages have different alcohol concentrations. A 12-ounce beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine, and a 1.5-ounce shot of liquor all contain the same amount of pure alcohol and each count as one standard drink.
Standard Drink Sizes by Beverage
Because alcohol content varies so widely across beverage types, the serving size that equals one standard drink changes too. Here’s how it breaks down:
- Regular beer (5% ABV): 12 fluid ounces, the size of a typical can or bottle.
- Light beer (4.2% ABV): 12 fluid ounces. Light beer has slightly less alcohol, but the standard serving stays the same.
- Malt liquor (roughly 7% ABV): 8 to 9 fluid ounces.
- Table wine (12% ABV): 5 fluid ounces, which is smaller than most people pour at home.
- Fortified wine like sherry or port (17% ABV): 3 to 4 fluid ounces.
- Distilled spirits such as vodka, rum, whiskey, or gin (40% ABV / 80 proof): 1.5 fluid ounces, a single shot.
The key number tying all of these together is 0.6 ounces of pure ethanol. Every one of those serving sizes delivers that same amount of alcohol to your body.
Why the Serving Size Matters More Than the Glass
Most glasses, bottles, and cans don’t hold exactly one standard drink. A typical restaurant wine pour is closer to 6 ounces, which is about 1.2 standard drinks. A pint of beer at a bar is 16 ounces, not 12, making it roughly 1.3 standard drinks if it’s a regular 5% beer. A generous home pour of whiskey over ice can easily reach 2 to 3 ounces, nearly doubling the standard.
Craft beer makes this especially tricky. A 12-ounce bottle of a craft beer at 10% ABV contains two standard drinks, not one. The NIAAA specifically flags this: the same size bottle can hold one standard drink or two depending entirely on the ABV printed on the label. If you drink IPAs or imperial stouts that commonly run 7 to 10%, a single can may count as 1.5 to 2 drinks.
How to Calculate Standard Drinks Yourself
You can figure out the number of standard drinks in any container using a simple formula from the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board:
Number of standard drinks = (volume in ounces) × (ABV as a decimal) ÷ 0.6
For example, a 16-ounce pint of 5% beer: 16 × 0.05 = 0.8, then 0.8 ÷ 0.6 = 1.33 standard drinks. Or a 750ml bottle of wine (about 25.4 ounces) at 13.5% ABV: 25.4 × 0.135 = 3.43, then 3.43 ÷ 0.6 = 5.7 standard drinks. That lines up with the common estimate that one bottle of table wine contains about five standard drinks.
This formula works for anything. Grab the ABV from the label, measure or estimate the volume in ounces, and plug the numbers in.
Common Containers and Their Standard Drink Counts
Some quick reference points for containers you’ll actually encounter:
- 12-oz can of regular beer (5% ABV): 1 standard drink
- 16-oz pint of regular beer (5% ABV): 1.3 standard drinks
- 22-oz bomber of craft beer (8% ABV): about 2.9 standard drinks
- 750ml bottle of wine (12% ABV): about 5 standard drinks
- 1.75-liter handle of 80-proof liquor: about 39 standard drinks
- Standard cocktail with 2 oz of liquor: 1.3 standard drinks (before accounting for any liqueurs or mixers with alcohol)
How This Connects to Drinking Guidelines
The CDC defines moderate drinking as two standard drinks or fewer per day for men and one or fewer for women. Those guidelines are built entirely around the standard drink unit, so miscounting your drinks means the guidelines lose their usefulness. If you drink two pints of 7% IPA thinking you’ve had “two beers,” you’ve actually consumed closer to four standard drinks.
Standard Drink Sizes Differ by Country
The 0.6-ounce (14-gram) standard is specific to the United States. Other countries define a standard drink differently. In the UK, one unit of alcohol is 8 grams of pure ethanol, roughly 57% of a US standard drink. Australia sets theirs at 10 grams, and Canada uses 13.45 grams (close to the US). This means international drinking guidelines aren’t directly comparable to American ones. If you’re reading health advice from a non-US source, check which standard they’re using before applying the numbers to your own habits.