Is a shot of alcohol the same as a measure?

How to calculate the volume of alcohol in a drink?

• hey, I'm having a little trouble finding out how to measure alcohol by volume lets say i drank captain morgans and i had a shot of it, would that shot be 35%?? but if it is why don't i get drunk on one shot compared to having a few bottles of beer which are around 6% per bottle?? and how would I calculate a glass of captain morgans and coke?? an explanation would be nice :) thanks!

• Answer:

  Okay. By law, all bottles of alcohol have to state the alcohol by volume on them. Alcohol by volume is the ratio of ethanol (pure alcohol) to liquid in the drink. 100% ethanol would never be sold but in theory is all ethanol. Beer is usually 5% ABV- this means that in say, 100 ounces of beer (that's actually a lot) , there are 5 ounces of ethanol. To figure out the alcohol content is a simple multiplication. Multiply the volume of drink by the ABV and you'll get the amount of ethanol in it. For example a shot of 35% (underproof) rum is 1.5 oz * .35= .53 ounces of ethanol. A "standard drink" is a convention used in the US. A standard drink is .6 ounces of ethanol and is usually achieved by: 12 ounces of 5% ABV beer (12*.05=.6) 5 ounces of 12% ABV wine (5*.12=.6) 1.5 ounces of 40% liquor (1.5*.4=.6) So if you take a shot of captain morgan, you're having 35% alcohol, but not nearly as much VOLUME of it. A shot of captain morgan is about the same as one of your 6% beers. As far as the rum and coke, it all depends on the alcohol you put in. If you put in a shot of captain morgan, it's going to have one drink equivalent in it, no matter how much coke you put in it. I hope that helped. If you have another question let me know.