🍹 Party Drink Calculator
Plan exactly how much beer, wine, and spirits to buy for your party based on guest count, party length, and your drink mix.
What this calculator does
Buying the right amount of alcohol for a party is a balance between running out and over-buying. This calculator estimates total drinks needed from your guest count and party length, then splits that into beer, wine, and spirits based on your expected drink mix.
How the math works
A widely used party-planning rule of thumb is about 1 drink per drinking guest per hour of the event. The calculator multiplies your number of drinking guests (guests times the percentage who drink) by the party length in hours to get total drinks, then divides that among beer, wine, and spirits according to the shares you enter. It converts each category into shopping units: a beer serving is treated as one 12oz can or bottle, a 750ml wine bottle as about 5 glasses, and a 750ml liquor bottle as about 17 standard 1.5oz shots (enough for many mixed drinks).
- Consumption is usually heaviest in the first couple of hours and tapers off later – this calculator uses a steady average across the whole party, so treat it as a helpful baseline rather than an exact prediction.
- Non-alcoholic drinks are estimated separately at a lighter rate for guests who aren’t drinking alcohol.
This tool is for general party planning only. Always plan for guests to drink responsibly and never serve alcohol to anyone under the legal drinking age.