A 70cl bottle of spirits holds 28 single shots of 25ml, or 20 shots if your pub pours 35ml. A 1 litre bottle is 40 singles at 25ml and a 1.5 litre is 60. That's the answer on paper. In a pub the real number is whatever your till says you sold out of the bottles your stocktake says you used, and the gap between the two is usually worth more than people think.
I get asked this one more than almost anything, usually by someone pricing a new bottle or trying to work out why the spirits are short. So here's every common size in one place, wine and port as well, the duty sitting in each shot, and the ten-minute check I'd run before blaming anyone for anything.
How many shots in a bottle: every size
| Bottle | 25ml singles | 35ml singles | Doubles (2 x 25ml) | Units at 40% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35cl (half bottle) | 14 | 10 | 7 | 14 |
| 50cl | 20 | 14 (and 10ml over) | 10 | 20 |
| 70cl (standard UK bottle) | 28 | 20 | 14 | 28 |
| 1 litre | 40 | 28 (and 20ml over) | 20 | 40 |
| 1.5 litre | 60 | 42 (and 30ml over) | 30 | 60 |
The sum is the bottle size in millilitres divided by the measure. 700 ÷ 25 = 28. 700 ÷ 35 = 20. Units are strength times volume divided by 1,000, the NHS formula, so a 25ml shot of a 40% gin is exactly 1 unit and a 35ml shot is 1.4. A 37.5% vodka comes in a touch under, at 0.94 of a unit a single.
25ml or 35ml: the rule, and what it does to the bottle
Gin, rum, vodka and whisky have to be served in 25ml or 35ml, or multiples of those. You pick one for the whole premises, every bar the same, and put up a notice telling customers which. Trading Standards' own guidance gives the wording: "Gin, rum, vodka and whisky are served on these premises in 25 ml measures or in multiples of 25 ml". The rule doesn't apply when one of the four goes into a cocktail with two or more other drinks. The full set of rules is in my drink measures guide.
Other spirits, brandy, tequila, liqueurs, sambuca, have no legal measure. But if your price list says "25ml", it has to be measured with stamped kit like the rest. Easiest thing is to pour everything at your house measure.
Switching from 25ml to 35ml is a bigger move than it looks. The bottle drops from 28 serves to 20, so the cost of each serve goes up 40%. On a £15 bottle that's 54p a shot becoming 75p. Same bottle, same customers, eight fewer sales out of it. If you go to 35ml without putting the price up by about the same, you've given away a chunk of your spirits margin in one go. Some pubs do it on purpose as a selling point. Fine. Just do the sum first.
Wine and port: glasses in a bottle
Wine by the glass has its own legal measures: 125ml or 175ml, or multiples, and you have to tell customers which. Port, sherry and other fortified wines go in 50ml or 70ml, or multiples.
| 75cl bottle of | Measure | Serves |
|---|---|---|
| Wine | 125ml | 6 |
| Wine | 175ml | 4 (and 50ml over) |
| Wine | 250ml | 3 |
| Port or sherry | 50ml | 15 |
| Port or sherry | 70ml | 10 (and 50ml over) |
That 50ml left over on a 175ml pour is the bit that disappears in most pubs. Four large glasses and a splash that ends up topping up the fifth customer's glass, or down the sink the next morning. The wine by the glass guide has the pricing sums and how to stop the last glass being free.
The duty sitting in every shot
Before the distiller, the wholesaler or you have made a penny, every 25ml of a 40% spirit carries about 34p of duty at the rate in force since 1 February 2026 (£33.99 per litre of pure alcohol). The Budget takes that to £35.54 from 1 February 2027, which is about 36p a shot and £9.95 a bottle, up from £9.52. Then VAT goes on top of the lot. My arithmetic on the government's published rates.
| 40% spirit | Duty now (from 1 Feb 2026) | Duty from 1 Feb 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| 25ml shot | 34p | 36p |
| 35ml shot | 48p | 50p |
| 70cl bottle | £9.52 | £9.95 |
| 1 litre bottle | £13.60 | £14.22 |
So on a £15 house vodka at 37.5%, about £8.92 of what you pay, roughly 60%, is duty. That's why one shot short a bottle hurts. You've already paid the duty on it.
Why bottles give 27, not 28
On paper a 70cl bottle is 28. Behind a busy bar it's often 27, sometimes 26, and nobody's done anything wrong. The usual reasons, none of them theft:
- The optic doesn't refill. Trading Standards say the measuring chamber must be allowed to fill fully before the next measure. On a Friday rush it often isn't. The customer gets a short one, someone notices and gives it a second push to make it up, and that second push is where the bottle loses its shot.
- The last bit stays in the bottle. The dregs in the optic or the neck when the bottle's changed.
- Pourers used as measures. Bottle-top pourers aren't legal measures for gin, rum, vodka or whisky served neat or with one mixer, even when they're marked 25ml. They're for cocktails. Free-pouring a single off one is both a legal problem and a yield problem.
- Doubles rung as singles, comps and staff drinks not rung at all. Not dishonesty, usually just a busy till. But the stock's gone and the till doesn't know.
- Spills and breakages that never make the wastage sheet.
One shot a bottle doesn't sound like much. On a house vodka at £3.80 a single, that's £3.80 of takings per bottle. Ten bottles a week is £38. Over a year it's about £1,980, on one product. My arithmetic, illustrative.
The yield check: how many shots your bottles really give
Here's the bit almost nobody does, and it takes ten minutes after a stocktake. Instead of looking at the variance in pounds, work out how many shots each bottle actually gave you.
- Bottles used. From your stocktake: opening stock plus deliveries minus closing stock, for one spirit. Count part bottles properly, by weight if you can (my guide to weighing spirits shows how). Say it's 10 bottles of house vodka.
- Shots the bottles should have given. 10 x 28 = 280 singles.
- Shots the till says you sold. Pull the product report for the same dates. Count a double as two singles. Say 266.
- Your yield. 266 ÷ 280 = 95%. You got 26.6 shots a bottle, not 28.
That's 14 singles unaccounted for, £53.20 at £3.80, in one week on one bottle. Do it for your top five spirits and you'll see straight away whether it's one product (look at that optic, that pourer, how it's rung on the till) or everything (look at the count method and the comps). If yield sits at 98% or better across the board, stop worrying about spirits and go and look at the draught.
| Yield | Shots per 70cl | Lost per 10 bottles | At £3.80 a single, per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100% | 28 | 0 | £0 |
| 98% | 27.4 | 6 shots | £1,186 |
| 96% | 26.9 | 11 shots | £2,174 |
| 93% | 26.0 | 20 shots | £3,952 |
Per year assumes ten bottles a week, every week, rounded to whole shots. My arithmetic, illustrative.
The reason this works better than staring at a pound figure is that it takes price changes, deliveries and the time of year out of it. A shot is a shot. When I do it, the conversation with the team stops being "the spirits are down" and becomes "the Smirnoff optic is giving 26", which is something you can actually fix, often by just letting the optic refill.
Counting it without the sums
You can do all of the above on paper. StockTap does the bottle maths for you: open bottles are weighed (or a quick tenth if you're in a rush), it knows a lot of standard bottles already, and if a bottle isn't listed you weigh one full sealed bottle once and it works out the rest. The count comes out in measures and money, and the daily spot check shows the pounds of sales missing against the till. But the yield check above works with nothing more than your last stocktake sheet and a till report. Do it this week.
Common questions
How many shots are in a 70cl bottle?
28 single shots of 25ml, or 20 if your pub serves 35ml. A 70cl bottle is 700ml, so 700 divided by 25 is 28 and 700 divided by 35 is 20. That's 14 doubles at 25ml.
How many shots are in a 1 litre bottle?
40 shots of 25ml, or 28 shots of 35ml with 20ml left over. A 1.5 litre bottle is 60 shots of 25ml or 42 of 35ml.
Is a pub shot 25ml or 35ml?
Either, but not both. Gin, rum, vodka and whisky must be sold in 25ml or 35ml or multiples of them, the same measure in every bar of the premises, with a notice telling customers which one you use. Most UK pubs use 25ml.
How many units are in a shot?
A 25ml shot of a 40% spirit is 1 unit. A 35ml shot is 1.4 units. A whole 70cl bottle at 40% is 28 units. The NHS formula is strength times volume in ml, divided by 1,000.
Why don't I get 28 shots out of every bottle?
Usually the last few millilitres left in the bottle or optic, a measure not allowed to refill fully, spills, or drinks poured but not rung through the till. Compare the bottles your stocktake says you used with the shots rung on the till to see your real yield.
Sources
- Gin, rum, vodka and whisky in 25ml or 35ml or multiples, same measure in all bars, notice wording, cocktail exemption, optic measuring chamber must refill fully, bottle-top pourers not legal measures, wine 125ml/175ml and multiples, fortified wine 50ml/70ml, other spirits not controlled unless a quantity is stated: Business Companion (Trading Standards), Selling alcohol in licensed premises, last reviewed September 2026, guidance for England and Wales. Legislation: Weights and Measures (Intoxicating Liquor) Order 1988, article 3.
- One unit is 10ml of pure alcohol; units = strength (ABV) x volume (ml) ÷ 1,000: NHS, Calculating alcohol units, checked 9 November 2026.
- Spirits duty £33.99 per litre of pure alcohol from 1 February 2026: GOV.UK, Alcohol Duty rates. £35.54 from 1 February 2027: HM Treasury, Budget 2026 Annex A: rates and allowances. Both checked against my Budget guide.
- £15 house vodka at 54p a 25ml shot and £3.80 a single: my spirits pricing guide.
- Shots per bottle, duty per measure, the yield check, the yield table and the lost-shot sums are my own arithmetic, illustrative, not any real pub's figures.