Cocktails in a pub: why twenty espresso martinis look like a missing bottle of vodka

Sell twenty espresso martinis on a Saturday and, if the till button isn't linked to its spirits, your next stock check shows about a bottle and a half of vodka missing and most of a bottle of coffee liqueur gone with it. Nothing went missing. The till sold a cocktail and the stock lost its ingredients. Translate every cocktail into measures before you read the variance, keep the spec tight because the law doesn't do it for you, and decide what the slow liqueurs are costing you on the shelf.

Cocktails have crept onto a lot of pub menus, and for good reason. Bacardi's cocktail trends report, covered in the Morning Advertiser last December, found almost half of Gen Z would rather finish a meal with an espresso martini than an espresso, and rated the spritz their number one cocktail for 2026. Good margin, good for the bar's atmosphere. Also the fastest way I know to turn a clean spirits count into a mess.

Why the vodka goes "missing"

A spirits variance is a simple sum. What the bottle lost since the last count, against what the till says went out. On a vodka and coke that's easy, one button, one measure. A cocktail button is different. It sells a drink made of two or three stocked products, and unless your till or your stock system knows the spec, the vodka line never hears about it.

Here's the arithmetic on a common espresso martini spec of 50ml vodka and 25ml coffee liqueur. Your spec might differ. The shape won't.

Cocktail (illustrative spec)	Per drink, in 25ml measures	20 sold, what leaves the shelf
Espresso martini: 50ml vodka, 25ml coffee liqueur	Vodka 2, liqueur 1	1,000ml vodka (1.4 bottles), 500ml liqueur (0.7 of a bottle)
Mojito: 50ml white rum	Rum 2	1,000ml rum (1.4 bottles)
Spritz: 50ml bitter aperitif, 75ml prosecco	Aperitif 2, plus 75ml fizz	1,000ml aperitif, 1,500ml prosecco (2 bottles)

My arithmetic, 70cl bottles. Twenty a weekend is nothing for a busy pub with a cocktail list, and that's 40 measures of vodka a week that the variance report treats as poured and not paid for. At an illustrative £16 a bottle ex-VAT it's about £23 of vodka at cost. Read off a report that values shortfalls at selling price, it looks a lot worse, and it looks exactly like someone pouring for their mates. I won't have a team member questioned over a recipe the till doesn't know.

The cocktail translation sheet

The fix is boring and it works. One sheet, every cocktail on the menu, each one broken into 25ml measures of every stocked spirit and liqueur in it. At each count, take the cocktail sales off the till for the period, multiply out, and add the result to the till figure for each spirit before you look at the variance.

So if the till rang 38 measures of vodka as singles and doubles, and 20 espresso martinis, the vodka line's "till says" figure is 78 measures, not 38. Now the variance means something.

Use half measures where the spec needs them. 37.5ml is 1.5 measures, 12.5ml is 0.5. In StockTap the till figure box on a spot check takes decimals for exactly this, and the variance comes back per product in measures and pounds. StockTap doesn't do recipe costing, so the multiplying is on you or a spreadsheet. If your till can link a cocktail button to its components, use that instead and test it once with a single drink before you trust it, the same way I'd check every new line.

The measure law doesn't cover cocktails

This catches people out. The Weights and Measures (Intoxicating Liquor) Order 1988 says gin, rum, vodka and whisky must be sold in 25ml or 35ml or multiples of them. Article 3 carves out a mixture of three or more liquids. So a cocktail can legally be free poured, and the only thing holding your spec is your bar team and a jigger. I've set out the full measures table in the drink measures guide.

Spec drift is where the margin goes, quietly. Here's my illustrative costing at £9 inc VAT, which is £7.50 ex-VAT.

Espresso martini, illustrative	Made to spec (50ml)	Heavy hand (60ml)
Vodka at £16 a 70cl bottle	£1.14	£1.37
Coffee liqueur, 25ml at £14 a bottle	£0.50	£0.50
Espresso, syrup, garnish (rough)	£0.25	£0.25
Cost per drink	£1.89	£2.12
GP on £7.50 ex-VAT	74.8%	71.7%

Ten extra millilitres doesn't sound like much. It's three points of GP and, on twenty drinks, 200ml of vodka a week the translation sheet can't explain. Free pouring is a choice the law lets you make. I'd still put a jigger on the bar and a spec card next to it, and the same goes for free pour versus optics on everything else.

Batching: count the batch, not the vodka

Pre-batching speeds up a busy night and it's where counts go sideways, because the spirits leave their bottles days before anyone buys a drink. If you make up a 70cl bottle of espresso martini mix at 2 parts vodka to 1 part liqueur, that's about 467ml of vodka and 233ml of liqueur gone from the shelf on Thursday for drinks sold on Saturday.

Treat the batch as its own product. Set it up as a line, cost it at what went in, label the bottle with the date and the mix, and count it like any other part bottle. When you make a batch, add what went into it to the vodka and liqueur till figures for that period. When you sell the cocktails, they come off the batch line, not the vodka. Done that way every line balances. Done any other way, the vodka line shows a loss one week and a gain the next, and that kind of see-saw makes a good bar look shambolic. Leftover batch at close goes in the wastage log with a reason, at the time, not from memory.

The liqueur tail

The bit nobody prices. A cocktail list brings bottles onto the back bar that only exist for one drink. A 70cl bottle at 25ml a cocktail is 28 drinks. If that cocktail sells four a month, the bottle sits there seven months, and once you're carrying a dozen of them for a list that sells mostly two drinks, that's real money on the shelf doing nothing. My dead stock guide covers what to do with it.

My rule: before a cocktail goes on the list, ask what each of its bottles is for when that cocktail isn't selling. If the answer is nothing, either find a second drink that uses it or pick a spec that doesn't need it. Menus built round five or six spirits you already sell are easier to count and kinder to the cash.

Prosecco and the fresh stuff

The spritz brings its own problem. An open bottle of prosecco loses its fizz fast and a vacuum pump is no use on sparkling, as I set out in the wine preservation guide. Sell spritzes on a quiet Tuesday and the end of the bottle often goes down the sink. Log it. It's a cost of the drink, not a mystery.

Espresso, citrus, purées and garnish are dry stock and most stocktakes ignore them, which is fine as long as you remember they're in the cost. I've put them at a rough 25p a drink above. If you're squeezing fresh limes for mojitos on a slow night, it'll be more.

What I'd do this week

Write the translation sheet for every cocktail you sell, in 25ml measures. Put the spec card and a jigger where the drinks get made. Set any batch up as its own line. Then run a spot check on vodka the morning after a busy night, with the cocktails added in. If the variance shrinks to almost nothing, the "loss" was always the recipe. If it doesn't, you've got a real number worth chasing, and the unexplained loss guide has the next step.

Common questions

Do cocktails have to be served in 25ml or 35ml measures?

No. Under the Weights and Measures (Intoxicating Liquor) Order 1988 the 25ml or 35ml rule for gin, rum, vodka and whisky doesn't apply to a mixture of three or more liquids. That makes your spec card and a jigger the only control on cost, so it's worth keeping both.

How do I account for cocktails in a stocktake?

Break every cocktail into 25ml measures of each stocked spirit and liqueur, multiply by the number sold in the period, and add the result to each spirit's till figure before you read the variance. Otherwise every cocktail shows up as missing stock on its ingredients.

How do I stocktake batched cocktails?

Set the batch up as its own product costed at what went in, and count it like any open bottle. Add the spirits used to make it to those spirits' till figures when you make it, and take cocktail sales off the batch line, not the base spirit.

What GP should a pub cocktail make?

I don't know of a published UK benchmark I'd trust for pub cocktails. On my illustrative espresso martini at £9, made to spec, it's about 75% before waste, falling to under 72% with a 60ml pour. Cost your own specs at your own prices.