Does it exist?

I see that the EU has different calculations to the UK who in turn is different again to the USA and OZ, am I right?

The EU seems to make the most sense to me - 1 unit of alcohol is 10g of pure alcohol, so, 1 dl of 12% wine, 2.5 dl of 5% beer and .3 dl of 40% proof all equal 1 unit of alcohol.

In the USA 1 unit is 1.25 dl of wine, 2.5 dl of beer is 1.4 units, .25 dl of 40% proof = 1 unit

The UK is 8 g of pure alcohol. So 1 unit of alcohol is= 2.5 dl 3-4% beer, or .25 of spirits (40% alcohol by volume), or 1.25 dl of 12% wine = 1 1/2 units

Anyone know of a better and/or universal way of counting units?

This is a nightmare, and I've no idea mentally what a deciliter even is

A dl is 1/10 th of a liter. 1 lt = 10 dl or 100 cl or 1000 ml

30ml = 1 fluid oz
60ml = 2 fluid oz
100ml or 1 dl = 3 fluid oz
125ml = 4 fluid oz
150ml = 5 fluid oz (¼ pint)
190ml = 6 fluid oz
250ml = 8 fluid oz
300ml = 10 fluid oz (½ pint)
500ml or 5dl or 1/2 a l = 16 fluid oz
600ml = 20 fluid oz (1pint)
1000ml (1 litre) = 1¾ pints

Oh right, no I mean I KNOW what a deciliter is....but I have no visual representation of how much liquid that is - it would be nearly impossible for me to judge drinks visually in deciliters

A very interesting topic, Curi!

I personally think the UK system is actually the most logical: 10ml pure alcohol is worth 1 unit in the UK. Since drinks are never sold in grams, but in millilitres, this makes the calculation easier for consumers (And I presume 10ml pure alcohol weighs 8g...)

In fact, it looks like there is no consensus in terms of alcohol units within mainland Europe:
http://www.campden.co.uk/campdenbri-day ... _brew2.pdf

I've found this little clever thing. It looks like 1 UK unit = 0.564 US unit (or 1 US unit = 1.77 UK unit):
http://www.cleavebooks.co.uk/scol/ccalcoh1.htm

Happy maths!

Yeah, I was just reading EL's post about recommended limits which (using the UK definition) made the States seem draconian until I remembered about the different size definitions. Heh, I was wondering why 10 units was more than you wanted for a Friday . Wikipedia has a good article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_drink, but for quick-n-dirty mental conversion using "multiply US by 2 and subtract 1/10th of the result" [ie, factor of 1.8 - an error of 1.6%] to go from US to UK or "divide UK by 2 and add 1/10th of the result" [factor of 1.82 - error of 2.8%] to go from UK to US should be workable

In turn, however, the US limits are pretty draconian compared to the ones in other countries like France or Japan, however. Just sayin'