Dear all can I ask a quick question please. When those of you in the US talk about "drinks" are you referring to one drink being equal to one of your units?

So for example a 750ml bottle of 13% wine would be approx 5.5 units and drinks?

We don't use the standard drink measurement in the UK just units. The same bottle of wine here would be close to 10 of our units.

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick. I'm just trying to figure it out so I can understand everyone's posts.

K X

It is possible to find a drinks units converter by Googling "UK & US unit calculator", roughly I think a US 'unit' is twice as many UK units.

The app I used for tracking had a bunch of presets and those were good enough for me. But in general I think it's like this in the US anyway, 5oz glass of wine, 12 beer at 5% alcohol, 1oz shot of 86 proof liqueur are all one unit.

Technically speaking a UK unit is 10ml of pure alcohol so if you are drinking a wine that is 10% alcohol then 100ml of that wine would be 1 unit.

So the formula is:

number of UK units = (volume of the drink (in milliliters)) * (ABV Average percent alcohol) / 1000

Thank you both,

I understand the units but was wondering if when people refer to "drinks" they are using unit measures or volume. For example dependant on what the alcohol was a "drink" could contain a varying amount of alcohol.

K X

We all measure in different ways! I, for one, measure the same way Ocean described; " 5oz glass of wine, 12 oz beer at 5% alcohol, 1oz shot of 86 proof liquour are all one unit" I refer to them as a "drink" not a "unit" though. So if I drink a Cosmo that contains 1.5 oz of vodka and .5 oz of Cointreau that = 2 oz. I would enter that as "2 drinks" on my drinking log, even though (technically speaking) it's just one drink. But that's just me!

The important thing to keep in mind isn't how WE measure, but how YOU measure. Just remain consistent with your own measurements so you can gauge your progress!

MinneMom

a US drink/unit is 1.8 UK units

so 5.5 US units in a bottle of wine x 1.8 = 10 UK units

well, 9.9, but close enough